


Before the Century was Stolen

by Im_a_Jorts_Man



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Trans Character, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Pining, Romance, Slow Burn, Some Canon, Starblaster - Freeform, Stolen Century, Trans Female Character, blupjeans, i'm in blupjeans hell, maybe even more slow burning than usual because i love that shit, some not canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2019-09-29 09:53:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 57
Words: 369,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17201318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Im_a_Jorts_Man/pseuds/Im_a_Jorts_Man
Summary: ...Lup took Barry’s hand. “Wanna watch the world end together?”***A deep dive of each year of The Stolen Century, mostly centered around the development of Barry and Lup's relationship, with a look into the changes and growth as individuals of each member of the IPRE crew. And, an exploration of the disturbing nature of the light of creation.





	1. Year One

Barry had been starting to think that neither of the twins took  _ anything  _ seriously. 

 

Obviously they were very talented and huge assets to the team and they did their fair share of work; there was just always an air about them, a way that they did things that made it seem like they were above it all. Nothing seemed to be important to them, except for each other. Barry had never seen two people so close, so in tune. Ever. It was like they didn’t have anything left over to give to anyone else.

 

It had been eight months since they landed on a planet inhabited entirely by animals with their own, universal language across all species. Barry had been working closely with Taako and Lup to learn the language, and maybe that proximity to them over the past months was part of what had him putting them in boxes. Because, if he could just conclude that they took  _ nothing  _ seriously, then he could understand why he didn’t feel taken seriously by them. 

 

It was partly the way they joked around in convoluted ways that only they understood. It was also the way that they did everything with such grace and ease that they could chat and joke during their work, as if the task at hand was just background noise. And, in terms of his place with them, it was the teasing and the nicknames and pointing out when he was visibly nervous, when his face was red, how often he pushed up his glasses. It was infrequent enough that it didn’t feel like outright bullying, but it was not something he had ever thought he would be experiencing at his age. He had gone so long with only other people in his same career field who were cut from a similar cloth as himself that he forgot this kind of treatment existed. 

 

“I didn’t know bluejeans were the official pants of scientists,” was something that Taako had said more than once. What do you say back to that? Apparently saying that they’re good for working in the field because of their durability and also in the lab because they held up well to burns and spills was  _ unforgivably  _ dorky. 

 

While it seemed mostly good-natured, and others in the crew at least got some of the teasing as well, he was never sure how to react to it. Or if there even was a right way to react to it. 

 

What made it sometimes start to feel bad was personal for him and they couldn’t have known… but it was because it was coming from them in particular; beautiful, interesting, charismatic, confident people. All things he felt he was lacking. All things that he hadn’t felt  _ aware  _ of lacking for the longest time. But with them, it was like he was surrounded by and constantly reminded of everything he wasn’t. 

 

If he could have just gone unnoticed, it would have been mostly fine. But it was  _ because  _ he was noticed and  _ because  _ they were paying attention to him. They saw every nervous quality of his and they let him know that they saw. He had become so aware of himself from an external viewpoint instead of being left to focus inward and to perform his work without any eyes on him; without comment, without attention. 

 

That was how he had always operated. Quietly, not expecting or wanting recognition, enjoying being behind the scenes. He honestly was happy to just see his work come to fruition, to have it be applied and used by others, to be helpful. They made him so aware of  _ himself _ instead of his work, in a way that just created a loop of him being more and more nervous. 

 

At least he felt fairly sure that they didn’t dislike him. And they had actually made pretty good progress together. Also, a huge part of him pushing himself to be comfortable with the mongooses was largely in part to them teasing him for being apprehensive around them in the first place. 

 

On top of everything else, he really didn’t want to be the guy who was afraid of cute animals. 

 

***

  
  


Most nights, Barry took his dinner to the lab. He would make the excuse that there were time sensitive things he needed to be working on. But really, it was just that he didn’t know how to keep up with or contribute to the conversation at the dinner table, and he typically sat there feeling awkward. Especially when one of the twins would inevitably point out that he was being quiet, which only made him more nervous about saying anything. 

 

He usually only spoke up when the topic was work related. He could easily talk about what he was working on, what he had observed or learned, and he could answer some of the questions the crew had. But he wasn’t even sure about what face to make or how to laugh when there was joking, and he would instinctively tune out when he couldn’t keep up with the fast paced, casual conversations. Everyone always knew what to say and how to respond seemingly instantly, but he had always been someone who had to think before he spoke, which wasn’t a habit that lent itself well to keeping up with a group of people all vying to get their say in an energetic conversation. 

 

At least Lucretia and Davenport were on the quiet side as well, but they had the benefit of having a sort of natural air of importance around them, so their quietness was just accepted and not pointed out. Maybe he could aspire to work on garnering that sort of treatment; if things were even able to be changed anymore. 

 

Most likely, everyone’s impression of him was already set and unchangeable. He was just going to be that shy, easily flustered science nerd. But it was fine. At least he would probably eventually just get used to it. So, Taako and Lup could keep it up and he would just not let it affect his work. He didn’t know why he was such an easy target, but there he was. 

  
  
  


Also, he had no idea where the hell they got Barold from. 

  
  
  



	2. All 7 Birds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Two

All of them. Again. All seven.

The six of them felt abruptly and forcefully gutted when the realization came that Magnus wasn’t with them and wasn’t going to make it and would never be with them again. Until they all felt the somewhat sick, numb, and dizzying feeling of being pulled apart and reassembled by coils of blindingly white light.

The state-of-the-art ship’s common lounge was where the crew was first seated when they left their home planet. And there in the circle of thickly cushioned seats was Merle, who had just been pressed up against one of the many circular windows that looked out over the side of the Starblaster. He had been looking for Magnus even though that was an impossible task, and a pointless one as well if he did somehow end up spotting him. Lup and Taako were sitting by him, though they had just been holding on to each other in their room. Barry a few moments before was kneeling by Lucretia, who had sunk to the floor and looked faint as the ship barely escaped with an incomplete crew -- but then, they were sitting across from each other, with Lucretia looking more like her well put together, usual self. And next to Lucretia was Magnus; slightly static with remnants of white light for just a few seconds longer than the rest, and complete with the black eye from their original departure one year ago. And still at the helm was Davenport, though shifted a bit over from where he had been just a moment ago, and with hair cut neat and not the wavy bit of length that had grown out over the last year.

***

Taako leaned against the frame of the door to the lab, idly looking over his nails. Barry was hunched over the back desk, quiet with frustration, not aware of Taako’s presence. Barry, being their science officer, had to do something about what happened to them earlier. He took hair and nail samples and cheek swabs, not knowing what to do with any of it, but not knowing how else to even begin to look like he was at least doing something.

“Hope it was worth it, Bear,” Taako said lazily, still looking at his nails and never once even glancing at Barry, who was startled out of his trance at Taako's voice.

“Oh, uh -- Taako, uh what do you mean?”

Taako rolled his head over, leaning with his back against the inside of the door frame still, his hand held in front of him as if he was going to go straight back to examining his nails once he was done giving Barry a sidelong glance. “Had to file ‘em all down to match, because you know ya boy doesn’t do uneven. Your sample threw off my nail game, and I’m just checking to see if you’ve made good use of what you’ve done to me,” and sure enough, he rolled his head back to give his nails one last look before dropping his hand to his side.

“I uh, haven’t really been able to uh... draw any conclusions. Or come up with a theory. I’m uh -- thank you though, for letting me -- for giving me the time… chance to work on this with uh your,” Barry stumbled over his words until he just exhaled while pressing the bridge of his nose and lightly closing his eyes. “Sorry. About your nails.”  

Taako sighed at Barry’s nervous apology, and something seemed to soften in his demeanor after hearing the obvious stress and panic in Barry’s voice. “You don’t have to be sorry, Barold. No one knows what the hell this is, or even has a guess. You’re trying to get us some info, and that’s more than anyone else can do.”  

He eased himself off of the door frame and stood upright and before turning to walk away, stopped and said, “but, if we find a salon in…” he gesticulated widely, “wherever it is we are now, you’re paying for my manicure.”  

Barry exhaled with a small laugh, relieved and also grateful for Taako’s patience and for lightening the unbearably oppressive mood that was hanging over him

***

While Barry stressed over trying to get some answers for the crew, everyone else tried to gather themselves and trust that they would eventually figure out what was going on with them, with the Starblaster, with the planes, with the dark, all-consuming cloud. For the time being though, the most pressing thing was finding resources for survival and figuring out the safety and livability of the place in which Davenport had landed them. They had their reserves of supplies and what they were able to stockpile from the trade that they conducted in the previous plane with the animals, and they had the self-replenishing, though slow,  resource of Merle’s small vegetable and herb garden in the light room.

    They had landed in a small clearing; it had been just enough space for Davenport to safely bring down the ship. The edges of the clearing were perfectly straight and formed a large square around them. The northern border of the clearing turned abruptly into thick jungle. The western line separated the clearing from a desert landscape, the southern a lake, and past the east line there were green, rolling hills, beyond which they could just make out the foggy silhouettes of tall buildings. Between each of these four sides, at the corners of their clearing, were more environments extending out into other squares. A cultivated farmland, deciduous forest, rocky grassland, and another desert but red and with tall, wind torn rock formations.  

Davenport came into the common area where the crew, minus Barry and Lucretia, were gathered by the row of windows that looked out over the side of the Starblaster.

     “From what I could see below us while looking for a place to land, this planet seems to be arranged in a grid.” 

Magnus, Lup and Taako turned away from the windows to face him, but Merle was fixated on the jungle to the north. Davenport glanced at the back of Merle’s head, then focused on the rest of the group. “As we can see just outside the ship, there are multiple, sharply defined habitats; and beyond that, it’s repeated ad infinitum. It does look like there are some habitated areas, or at least squares with buildings in them, not too far from us. We’ll focus on what’s around us first and assess any immediate danger there might be before venturing out into the hopefully populated squares.”

    The crew collectively nodded in agreement with Davenport, all of them still dazed and quiet. Behind them, still at the window, Merle mumbled something. Devenport looked back over at the back of his head. “What was that, Merle?”

     Merle turned away from the window, finally. “The trees out there in the jungle; it’s hard to tell because it’s so thick, but they’re all in perfect straight lines. S’creeping me out.” 

In addition to the straight lines, each square even appeared to have its own weather. The lake, visible from the windows on the other side of the common area, had a choppy surface that looked like it was being moved by an aggressive wind. It wasn’t too easy to see from their distance, but the jungle looked like it may have been raining above the treetops. The desert was glaring with bright light. The hills were shadowed with fast moving clouds. Lup shook her head and walked off; she was done with the weirdness outside and the weirdness of a bit ago when they were torn apart and reassembled by light. Of the weirdness of Magnus being left behind and then being a few feet from her. She wanted the comfort of something normal and familiar and had settled her mind on her and Taako’s blankets and bed. She could hear Taako start talking with Davenport and Magnus as she walked away, but couldn’t make out anything they were saying and wasn’t interested in finding out at that moment.

    As she made her way down the hall towards her room, she saw Barry’s door ajar and decided to check in with him. She knocked lightly on the partially open door and softly called out to him. “Hey, Barold.”

    “Oh, Lup,” he looked up swiftly, startled, even though she had tried to make her presence known as gently as possible. She poked her head in a bit first, then opened the door the rest of the way and allowed herself in before he had the chance to say anything else. He felt uneasy at the calm in her voice and the seriousness on her face; he was definitely not used to seeing that. He wondered what was wrong, even though he already knew that there were so many things wrong for everyone in that moment.

    “Just wanted to see how things were with you before I go plop myself face first into bed and attempt to just chill the fuck out for a hot minute.” She leaned her back against the wall just to the right of the door and casually crossed her arms.

    “Yeah uh, I haven’t really found anything out. Honestly, not even sure where to start. I uh -- know that’s probably not encouraging. I’m sorry.” Her face furrowed with concern for a second. “No, I meant that I wanted to see how things were with you . Like, a temperature check. How are you feeling? There’s just such a weird vibe out there,” and she slightly motioned her head towards the door.

    Barry blushed deeply. That wasn’t something he had been asked by Lup before. Or, anyone really. But there was a lot more reason to ask how people were doing emotionally, after all that, he reasoned.

    “I’m, um -- I guess I’m okay?  I’m just trying to throw myself into working on something. Uh, to be distracted or to feel useful or, I don’t know. Just something. Not really feeling much except that I want to be useful to you all, but I’m not sure I can be.” He winced. That sounded so pathetic. But Lup looked grateful.

    “Well, be good to yourself, Barold.” She turned to step out the door but paused and looked back at him and his breath stopped in his throat under her gaze. “You’re more than just a tool or utility or whatever to us. You don’t have to be useful constantly. You can flop down face first into bed, too, if you want to take a beat and gather yourself. Gods know we deserve it. This was supposed to be a two month gig,” she part laughed, part scoffed.

    Lup reminding him that he was a person and part of the team made him feel warm. And her being in his room and taking the time to ask how he was feeling and being so sincere with him filled him with a strange combination of calm and a quickened heart rate.

    “Yeah, I think I will lay down. Thanks, Lup,” and the gratefulness in his voice made her give a small, warm smile before dipping out the door and gently pulling it closed behind her.

 

***

 

Lup mulled over what Barry said and how he  _ looked  _ and  _ sounded _ . Contradictory to her aloofness (and her particular brand of teasing that seemed to reduce people to their most obvious, but unimportant, traits) she was very perceptive of others’ feelings and collected her observations in a little space in the back of her head. It made sense with the unstable background that her and Taako had that she would be carefully observant of people without them knowing. Having a file of a person’s moods and feelings and reactions to stressful situations helped to make that person more predictable, giving her the ability to know who to avoid, when to avoid them, or how to best utilize her gathered information to her advantage. Her main concern had always been to protect Taako and herself, but the skills she developed from doing so were helpful in other ways. Especially so with the crew of the Starblaster with whom it seemed she was stuck with for an unpredictable amount of time; maybe even forever. She shuddered. She liked her crewmates well enough, and was frankly quite grateful that there was no one among them that she couldn’t stand, but the idea of never knowing anyone else for more than a year ever again was a bleak thought. But, she had Taako with her, and nothing mattered more than that.

     Almost immediately after falling into bed, she realized that she hadn’t seen Lucretia and had no idea how she might be doing. It felt wrong not to check in with her as well, so she got herself up and headed back out of the room. Just as she reached the door though, Taako opened it to come in and they were suddenly face to face. Taako casually moved around her to gracefully fall into bed himself while greeting her. “What’s the haps?”

“I was going to see how Lucretia was doing. I just realized that I hadn’t seen her since we all did -- whatever you would call it that put us back in the same room again.”

    “Woof, yeah.” Taako exhaled heavily through his nose as he leaned back into their nest of pillows, putting his hands behind his head. “But, just saw her. Capn'port and her are writing up some notes together. Y’know those two; all business. Don’t seem shaken at all. Couple’a cool cukes.”

    “Well, that’s good,” Lup said with relief as she lightly tossed herself back onto the bed and snuggled up to Taako in their pillow nest. They always slept sort of sprawled out from the middle of the bed, their pillows in a messy pile around them with their blankets bunched up in the center. “Didn’t really want to leave the room, anyways.”

    “Yeah, everyone seems to be trying to keep busy instead of chilling the hell out like us cool kids,” Taako said, turning onto his side to set his chin on top of Lup’s head, ears twitching as he shuffled to get comfortable. “Merle and Magnus went to see what work they could do in the garden since Capn'port hasn’t given instructions on leaving the ship yet, and I saw Bluejeans heading towards to the lab on my way in here.”

Lup tsked. “That fuckin’ nerd, I told him to get some rest. He’s gonna drive himself up a wall.”

    “Aww, so concerned for our sweet dweeb,” Taako teased and Lup rolled her eyes at him. He continued through a yawn, “but for real, if he wants to get up close and personal with all the walls, that’s his prerogative. My man's worrying too much.” Taako finally settled into a perfect position in the pillow and blanket and Lup pile and closed his eyes. “I already told him that no one was expecting him to solve all the puzzles for us and that he’s good to hang for a hot sec.”

    Lup needled him with a finger to the ribs and said, “Aww, now who’s concerned about our sweet dweeb?” Taako grabbed her finger and gently jokingly motioned as if he were breaking it off while making a cracking sound effect, his eyes still closed. Lup laughed, pulled her hand away and wrapped her arm around Taako, and they drifted off to sleep.

***

    Lup woke up not long after that, but stayed comfy in her nest while turning thoughts over in her head. She kept worrying about Barry and she couldn’t really pinpoint why. There was definitely reason to be worried about everyone but, she kept returning to him. She was trying to remember what he said in their conversation, trying to hear what was in the pauses, in his tone. She decided that it must have been something along the lines of him seeming lonely, maybe on the outskirts of their group. She had been razzing him pretty hard, and so had Taako. It was their form of affection, or at least there was some affection in it (they definitely teased each other a lot and everyone else got some, too). But Lup started developing a vague feeling that maybe he took it to heart or maybe she was leaning into him harder than the others without realizing it. He was a pretty easy target. She really did like calling him a nerd though; it was super true and it also made him blush and fidget and look away from her like a school kid with a crush, and she had decided that it was too adorable to stop. It didn’t seem harmful; it just flustered him, and that was a reaction that Lup liked to elicit from people.

    But, if he did feel alienated or if he had some confidence issues that made him feel like he had to work extra hard to be accepted or be useful or whatever it was, Lup decided that she would do something to help with that. She had confidence to spare and maybe it would rub off and he’d be a little bit more at ease. But, hopefully still able to be flustered by her; that was too fun and cute to lose and she couldn’t really get that same reaction from anyone else in the crew.

 

 

    There was a soft, deep whooshing sound as the ship came alive with its automated lights. It was getting dark outside and Lup was a little disappointed that it seemed like they wouldn’t get out and exploring until the next day, however long away that might be on that plane. She was done with feeling weird and was ready to get to work and try to make sense of some things.

***

 

Barry wanted to take his dinner to the lab with him, trying to slip away with his plate quietly before everyone sat down together and started to socialize. He obviously knew that they would notice that he wasn’t there, he just didn’t want to sit down with them all and have to wait to excuse himself, or stay there stuck in a social situation while his mind was elsewhere. But, of course Merle walked into the kitchen while Taako and Lup were in the common area setting the table, and noticed Barry trying to leave with his plate.

    “Hey there, Bear, wherrrrre ya goin’?” asked Merle, awkwardly drawing emphasis to the rhyming words in his sentence.

    “Um, I just thought that uh, I could keep working on some tests during dinner because I want to try and get whatever I can figured out before tomorrow, if we’re going to go outside, that is,” Barry rambled, basically telling the truth, but omitting that he was not feeling particularly social.

    “You’ve got all night for that!” Merle protested. “Come on, sit down with us, we gotta celebrate all being here together!”

    Merle had a point; Magnus was with them when it had seemed like they would never see him again. It would be kind of shitty for Barry to skip out on dinner with him and the others. They all had a rough, strange day and should be together. Barry followed Merle out to the dining table, trying his best to shift his attitude on the way.

***

    In the morning, Davenport had ideas for everyone on how to approach the new plane. They gathered in the common area, ready to listen and to offer their own input and ideas. Pretty soon, they had a game plan and everyone had their individual roles settled. Lup had offered to go with Barry to gather samples for testing; vegetation to see what might be edible, soil to see if they might be able to transfer some starter plants outside, water to test for toxins, and whatever other things of interest they came across. As Lup followed him to the lab to grab sample jars and tools, Barry nervously talked to her.

    “Really, you don’t have to help with this. It can be pretty boring, and I’m sure there’s better stuff you can do.” Lup looked a little hurt, as if he had just made her feel unwanted, unneeded. He bit the inside of his lip, upset that he didn’t know how to get ideas across properly, and not knowing whether to try and rephrase what he said or to just shut up. But Lup spoke up first.

    “Well, Bluejeans, I think gathering samples sounds kind of fun. Plus, I can watch your denim-clad behind while you focus, in case there’s anything out there.” 

    He shuddered at the thought of some sort of danger being outside the ship. The whole appearance of their surroundings put him on edge. It didn’t seem right, and he was already nervous about going out there. And being reminded of how absolutely useless he was outside of the lab and that he needed protecting made him feel even more dour. Barely a couple of hours out of bed and his anxiety was already making him queasy. Plus, he was going to be working next to the capable and outgoing Lup, which meant he was going to be nerve wracked and self-conscious about every move he made and every word out of his mouth just knowing how much more awkward he would look and sound next to her effortless elegance.\

*** 

    Supplies in hand, the crew minus Lucretia and Davenport exited the Starblaster. Immediately they all noticed the absolute stillness of the air and deafening quiet in the area surrounding them. Even though it was a ways away, it was quiet enough that they could hear a soft, rhythmic rain coming from the jungle. Taako, Merle and Magnus were going to head out towards the buildings that were visible past the hilly block to see if they could make contact with whatever civilization was hopefully there. Lup and Barry headed towards the water, hoping that they would be lucky enough for it to be potable.

    As they walked through the open field towards the lake side of the cube, Barry mused over how unsettling flat areas were. It was somehow more unnerving than being in a wooded environment where things could actually be hiding. He guessed it had something to do with the fact that you’re completely exposed when you’re in large, flat, featureless expanses, and that there was some sort of primitive, lizard brained instinct that made the feeling of walking through such an environment perturbing. Somehow, he felt like he was being watched. Even though he could see all around him, for quite a distance.

    Lup broke the silence. “You’re a million miles away, huh Barold?” Even at a completely normal volume, talking sounded loud in the unnatural silence of the field.

    Barry shook his head, as if to shake away his thoughts. “Yeah, sorry. Just kind of having some uh -- I guess strange feelings about this whole place.”

    Lup nodded slightly while looking forward. “I know what you mean. Kinda eerie, even in broad daylight.” She reassuringly put a hand on his shoulder. “See? Good to not be alone on this one!” Barry blushed, but also felt calmed by her. It really was good to not be alone. And so far, her company was more comforting than it was nerve wracking. Barry was glad that she had insisted on coming.

    They exchanged some idle banter on their way towards the lake; mostly about what Barry had been working on, what sort of samples he hoped to get, and what he would be doing to test them when they got back. Barry had assumed they would part ways once they returned to the Starblaster, but Lup expressed an interest in learning from and working with Barry. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that; on one hand having company would be nice, and an extra pair of hands was always helpful. But, it might be more difficult to focus on his work. It probably would be. It absolutely would be. On top of that, he thought that if others started to learn enough about how to do the most necessary parts of his job, he would just be all the more useless and expendable.

    But that was a selfish and irrational thought that he quickly stuffed away; he should be happy to share knowledge, he always was. And he had been learning and educated and working tirelessly at his profession his entire adult life; no one was going to pick up his expertise overnight and replace him. He confirmed that he would be happy to have her help and to teach her whatever he could, and she smiled at that and put a little bit of a skip in her step for a couple strides. It was ridiculously cute and Barry’s worries washed away and he was instead incredibly happy to have been presented with the opportunity. He also thought that maybe he could ask to be taught some of her skills in exchange so that he could be more of an asset to the crew. It would be a good call all around to work more closely with the others.  

    Back at the Starblaster, Lup and Barry took their bounty to the lab. There hadn’t been much of anything of interest out there, just the strangeness of how the field stopped abruptly along a straight line where the lake started. They had continued on from there to the corner where the farmland started. They didn’t venture too far into that block, but could see pretty far into its distance and saw no sign of anyone, even though the land was obviously being tended to by someone. They took a break for lunch together and then continued their trek along the border, up until the jungle where they ran out of supplies. There were a lot of different plants and fruits and pods and seeds to take back for testing from there. The subtle rain above the jungle was constant the entire time.

 

     In the lab, Lup moved her chair to sidle up next to Barry while he got to work. She was impressed at how agile and quick he was with his tools and how smooth he made the entire process look as he started taking samples apart and putting various bits into different trays or vials with all sorts of different liquids and gels in varying amounts. Everything was labeled and organized so neatly; small stickers where he wrote in clean, precise lettering the contents, the components added, the exact time at which each container was completed and sealed. He was able to explain to her in simple and effective terms everything he was doing without breaking his stride or even looking up from his work. It was obvious that he had spent some time as an educator and that he was just generally enjoying sharing his work with someone. He was nothing but kind and patient in every way; he didn’t possess an ounce of pretension. Lup found that she genuinely enjoyed sitting quietly while watching and listening to him. In addition to being educational and interesting as all hell, it was soothing to listen to him and hypnotic to watch him. With his equipment at his desk, he had the same sort of fluid capability and confidence that Taako had in the kitchen. Lup was equal parts surprised and pleased to see him this way. He did have the ability to be confident and to take the lead; it was just a matter of bringing that to the surface in other areas.

    Absorbed in performing and narrating his work, Barry didn’t even notice how close Lup was to him and how diligently she was listening to him. As a lull came in the process after all of the samples had been sealed and labeled, he suddenly became aware of his surroundings again and almost jumped at how close Lup was to him. Then he realized how long he had been talking and how long it had been since she said a word.

     “I’m sorry -- I didn’t realize how much I was talking, I should have left room for you to talk or ask questions or -,” 

Lup cut him off. “It’s fine, Barold. I was having a nice time listening to you. Trust me, if I ever want to talk, I will.” And he knew that was true and felt a weight fall off of him.

    He was very happy that he was going to have the opportunity to practice science with someone like Lup.  


	3. Time Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Three

And then they had a third chance. Renewed, restored, sitting in the same places as before. Set back to the bodies that began their mission, starting all over again; exciting and frustrating all at once. They were getting more chances to do something. They didn’t know what happened to the worlds that they left behind when the darkness came and the color was sucked out of everything. Were they gone? Were they just -- different? Occupied and fighting? Pacified and imprisoned? Or just… gone. Whatever it was, they knew they had to get to the light. And they were being given a third chance.

     Merle was back with them all. He had decided to go for a swim in the lake the previous year, and that was when they found out that the current of the lake was deceptively strong and only went one direction; and that direction was away from the shore. The others sat there, having their lunch outside, trying to make the best of the strangeness they were in the middle of. Magnus heard Merle first, choking and sputtering out in the water quite a ways away from them all. He jumped to his feet and everyone else turned just in time to see Merle go under; the choppy surface of the lake apparently became rough and overpowering further out. Magnus ran out into the water while everyone shouted after him.

    He stopped short as he realized that Merle had been under for too long by that point, and that he was experiencing a stronger and stronger pull from the water as he ran out. Still head and shoulders above water and with his feet on the ground underneath, he heeded the calls of the others and sulked back, struggling to fight against the current and just barely pushing his way to the shore. He was sullen and disappointed in himself for failing to protect one of the team for the rest of the cycle, and he had only stopped his rescue attempt because he knew he had to be there to protect everyone else. He didn’t care that it would have been pointless to go after Merle at that point. He only cared that the people on the shore calling out to him needed him, too.

    No one said anything, but everyone wondered whether or not the regeneration would happen again, and whether or not it would work for someone who had been killed earlier in the cycle rather than someone who was left behind and taken by the darkness, like Magnus had been. They had spent three long months without Merle, burdened by those thoughts, and then they finally had their answer. After everyone excitedly welcomed Merle back, Lucretia took him aside to take notes on what he experienced between just before his death and his reappearance on the ship.

    They all felt motivated and ready that time; they still needed a breather after being disassembled and reassembled by strings of light, of course, but they weren’t as emotionally affected and terrified as the time before. Still worried, still confused, but not completely overwhelmed.

    They hoped to find more variety and interest in that plane; they had found out in the last one that there was a repeating pattern of the cubed environments, so there was no reason to branch out any further than the cubes touching theirs. There was absolutely no sign of the light, so they had concentrated on building up their stock of supplies. The locals in the city over the hills were nice enough and they were able to gain some supplies, but it was just as strange there as it had been everywhere else. There was a palpable blandness to everything, the homes and walkways were all in perfectly straight lines and the citizens never strayed from those lines. They seemed barely able to even look in a different direction than the line they were on.

    From above, the new plane looked more like what they were used to. Bodies of water that followed no pattern and rambling strings of mountains breaking up large expanses of green land. Once Davenport landed them safely, they quickly found the air to be agreeable, the water to be pure, and were waiting on results that would determine what flora was safe to eat or handle.

    “Can’t wait for those results,” Merle said with a suggestive tone after Barry told the group about the plant samples. Merle was walking back into the common room after his talk with Lucretia, just in time to comment. He snorted at his own attempt at -very gross- humor.

    “Yeah, yeah, old man. Everyone knows about your ‘thing’,” Lup said. “Ever notice how no one else talks about what they’re into like you do?”

    Merle just shrugged and smiled. He clearly didn’t care. Taako was lying on his back across the couch and at Lup’s statement, slid up a bit so that his head was over the edge of the arm, hanging lazily. He raised the back of his hand to lie across his forehead and sighed dramatically, “What I am into is beautiful, beautiful boys,” he moved his arm over so that his face was tucked into the crook. “But I haven’t gotten to see one in so so long .”

    “Hey,” Magnus interjected, sounding defensive. He stood up from where he was sitting across from Taako on the other half of the circular couch-like area and stepped over to put his arm over Barry’s shoulders. “You’ve got a couple of beautiful boys right on this very ship with you. Potentially the most beautiful boys on this planet!”

    Taako huffed indignantly, with just the slightest playful tone. “Well, if that’s all I’m left to work with, I guess Taako’s new boyfriend is the mirror.” Magnus laughed and lifted his heavy arm off of Barry. He walked past Taako casually on his way to raid the pantry and bopped his nose. “You’ll come around eventually!”

    “You only love me for my cooking!” Taako yelled after him, not about to move from his spot where he took up half of the couch any time soon.

    Barry was bright red and silent for the entire exchange, and Lup watched with glee from her spot sitting on the floor hugging a pillow. “Oh beautiful boy Barold!” she called over in a sing-song voice. “Was there anything you needed help with while you’re waiting on your stuff?”

    Barry coughed and paused to breathe before being able to talk. He pushed his glasses up and inhaled, “I could use another set of eyes on my notes. I, uh, have a couple of shaky hypotheses on our whole -- regeneration thing.” He shuffled uncomfortably and adjusted the collar of his shirt; he could still feel the weight of Magnus’s arm on his shoulders. “I think I’ve been on it too long and need to take a step back. And uh, get a fresh perspective. If -- um, that’s something you’d be interested in, I know that probably sounds pretty boring --,” Lup tossed her pillow at Taako, who caught it mid-air and then started hugging it himself, and she bounded straight up from her sitting position and was in front of Barry almost instantly.

    “Hush! It’s not boring, Barold. Let’s go!” And she pulled on his sleeve and led him to the lab, excited to read his notes.

***

Taako flung the door to their room open and walked in at a pace so hurried that he had thrown himself face down onto the bed within a second of the door being opened. He rolled over and with a hollow stare, fixated his gaze on the ceiling. Lup remained unmoved at her place cross-legged on the other side of the bed, trying to fix a bra strap with electrical tape and a paperclip because she couldn’t find her needles. Or thread. Or even scissors. She looked over at her brother, not really worried because it would be more concerning if Taako wasn’t being dramatic. But, he was uncharacteristically silent for having just been so abrupt and intense with his entrance. Lup regarded him with mild concern, her hands slowly setting down her work. All she had accomplished so far was getting her fingers slightly sticky.

    “Lu. I’ve done something. Something terrible.”

    The way he said it -- Lup felt a wave of cold rush  over her skin and she suddenly, involuntarily held her breath and her heart felt like it was fluttering instead of beating. This sounded like it was actually bad? And who knew what that could mean here. Her mind exploded with scenarios and actions, how many people was she going to have to fight or kill? Where could she hide Taako, how did she need to protect him, or did he do something terrible in a way where he’s being emotionally affected, psychologically damaged, is it something that can’t be fixed.

“What,” she was barely able to say, more of an exhale than a word as she found her breath.

“I’ve… fallen in love.”

“Ko… what . What? What! Taako? Taako, the FUCK? TAAKO?” At her yelling, he jumped in surprise and turned over on the bed, propping his body halfway up with one arm and facing Lup, his face suddenly snapped out of his drama and his eyes widened.

“Okay, maybe that was a little too dramatic.” He squirmed and positioned himself to also be cross-legged and facing her.

    “I would agree with that. Gods, I just lived out several scenarios that had to do with me killing a lot of people and finding any and every hidden lair or hole in the ground possible to stow you away in. You do realize the sort of life situation we’re living right now already kinda has me on edge and expecting the worse. So. Don’t. Do. Stuff like  _ that _ .”

     He smiled sheepishly. “I won’t, promise. I didn’t realize how serious sounding that came out -- but it’s always  nice to be reminded that my sister would fight to the death for me. Please don’t hide me in a hole in the ground though; you can’t go dirtying my style just because someone’s coming to kill me.”  

    Lup pursed her lips and squinted her eyes at Taako while she fished around in the pocket of her shorts for something. She palmed a hair band, and even though Taako couldn’t see it, he knew what was coming, and he was ready to just let it happen because he had been an ass. She paused and looked at him like a cat readying itself to fuck something up. Then, whip quick, she had two fingers wrapped in the hair tie pressed against the skin of his forearm and holding the slack back with her other hand. She pulled it way back, taking her time to torment him. She let go, and the snap against his skin was loud and he let out an audible “eep!” and was left with a small welt.

    “I wish you weren’t so good with that,” he told her as he rubbed his arm. “I’ve been studying the art of hair-tie-snapping for decades,” she said in a dramatically austere voice.

    “Okay, okay, okay. So, we’re good? Right? Time for Taako?” She gave him a tiny nod.

    He sighed deeply and his face became morose and he fell onto the bed, the back of his right hand pressed to his forehead. “I’m in love,” and with the word love he swished his head over, allowing the hair tucked behind his ear to come loose and cascade down his face. He’s been waiting to do that, Lup thought to herself.

    “I took a shining to a tall, handsome boy who works at the clothing shop,” (a place where Taako had been spending most of his time). “And he is just lovely. We started to see each other often, mostly at the store because, gods Lup, this world has the best fashion and you know Taako is going to get as many custom threads as he can. So, he’s been fitting me and measuring me for different pieces quite often, and I felt like we were really bonding during the whole ‘freshen up Taako’s wardrobe’ adventure we were on together,” he breathed in wistfully, “and then I met his brother.” Lup snorted as she burst with a short but loud laugh at the abrupt and unexpected turn of his story. He was not discouraged, though; he only momentarily gave his sister a sidelong glance. She adjusted and sat still and straight to show that she was ready to take the rest of the story seriously.

***

    After lengthy descriptions of gorgeous hair and eyes you could get lost in and, of course the most attractive trait of all: dedication to Taako and his every whim, Lup was filled in on Taako and his dual crushes, one of which had become love. At least according to Taako who had been in ‘love’ a grip of times. But Lup wasn’t going to discount his feelings just because they happened to him a lot more than her. She just wasn’t much of a romantic like he was. But, she realized the problem, of course, from the very beginning of the story...

    There was no possibility of this love being able to continue. And there was only a slim chance of these two people surviving at all.

    They had a lead on the light that time around, which made them hopeful and gave them something to work on. But, they still didn’t quite know what that would do or how much it would help the people they were inevitably going to be leaving behind.

*******

They had the light.

They had the light!

    They had searched and searched and finally found a generous amount of a rare, hearty plant that provided strong, shiny strings of fibrous material when dried. It was for the people in the nearby town. Their entire culture was centered around fashion and making beautiful things (and, naturally, Taako had been in heaven for their eight months there so far). The townsfolk knew roughly where the light was, having seen it land somewhere up in the rocky and treacherous hills beyond the town. They agreed to spare a group of their people who were skilled in traversing the dangerous terrain to take the crew of the Starblaster on an expedition to retrieve it -- they just wanted the plant first. They were unaware of how long it took to grow when they first started harvesting it, and they had completely wiped out any trace of the plant in the area surrounding the town. In their early conversations with the crew, they had pointed to the Starblaster and suggested that they would be able to fly further out than they could explore and find somewhere that hadn’t been depleted of the plant.

    If he could assume that their time on that planet would be the same as the prior two, Barry had four months left to study the light. It was unnaturally beautiful; to the point of it being somehow -- unnerving. It was essentially just a ball of intense light, but its allure was beyond description. Sometimes, as Barry looked at it in the lab, his eyes would start to well with tears without him even being aware. There were nights in the lab where he would jot down the time in his notebook, and then look to the light for studying and -- it would suddenly be an hour later, and he would have nothing written down and no recollection of how the last hour had been spent.

    Barry hadn’t seen the others much since they got the light. Lup and Taako had been spending a lot of time together in town and Magnus and Merle were emboldened by their perceived immortality and went on an expedition together to look into a magic-based cult out in the mountains that the locals had told them about. Davenport was busy diligently looking over the ship again and again for any possible maintenance it might need before they would inevitably have to flee once more, and Lucretia was, as always, touching base with everyone and writing everything down as much as possible. Barry actually saw Lucretia more than anyone else after getting the light; she frequently dropped into the lab to catch up with Barry about what he had learned or observed. She nervously regarded the light and tried to keep her gaze down at the pages of her journal after Barry described the hypnotic nature of it. Hearing the faraway tone in his voice when talking about it had her worried, and her frequent trips to the lab to check in with him were as much about watching out for him as they were about recording information.

***

    About a month after retrieving the light, Barry took a break from the lab. He felt like he hadn’t been able to learn anything meaningful and it was making him feel useless and frustrated. Everyone else was off doing what they could to make use of their time; learning new skills, helping the locals, making repairs and improvements and resupplying their stocks. And he was sitting in the lab, not even knowing what it was that he was looking for and mostly just trying to keep his mind together and stop losing his focus. When Magnus, Merle, Taako and Lup had returned from their trek with the light in their possession, they had also described that there was a strange attraction that they all felt toward it, but they had it covered up and seemed perfectly fine. Other than them retrieving it, no one else had really spent much time around the light, and it was making him wonder if he was the only one drawn to it and distracted by it to such a degree. What if it wasn’t even a quality of the light, but just him not being able to keep his shit together? He’d need to observe someone else around it, but it didn’t sound fair to ask someone to subject themselves to some sort of eerie hypnotism from an object that he knew nothing about and couldn’t guarantee anyone’s safety from.

    He tried to enjoy taking a break but couldn’t keep his mind off of the lab. He just wanted so badly to make the most out of the little victory that everyone worked so hard to accomplish, and he had such a small window of time to work within. It felt selfish to do anything other than work on figuring out whatever he could, but he also knew that he needed distance from the lab for a moment if he wanted to really get anywhere. So, he found himself out on the deck of the Starblaster, leaning on the railing and looking out at their current world. They had landed in a pocket of flat land between sweeping hills that quickly turned into mountains. There was a network of creeks running through tall grass that eventually led to a river about a mile from the ship. The planet’s sun was peeking out of steel grey clouds and lit up the landscape with glittering gold light, but even with the strength of the sun’s light, it was barely warm. The crisp air was tinged with the smell of wet grass and rock giving it a heavy, earthy but also slightly metallic scent. Barry hadn’t bothered to put on his robe or jacket and stood in a short sleeved shirt with arms folded over the top of the railing, goosebumps beginning to dot his forearms.

    After a few moments of quiet contemplation while overlooking the landscape, Barry saw Lup and Taako returning to the ship. Lup looked up and saw Barry on the deck. Her ears perked up and she smiled wide as she stopped for a moment to wave to him. Barry raised up his hand and softly waved back down to her and then watched her skip to catch up with Taako and enter the ship. Her energy was already endless, but she seemed especially invigorated in their current environment, bounding and skipping and sprinting everywhere since they had arrived and started exploring. Barry had noticed before how in tune she was with her surroundings and how it often dictated her mannerisms and tone. He closed his eyes and tried to shut off the stressful dialogue in his brain and just focus on sensations. The brisk air on the surface of his arms, the slight breeze moving through his wavy hair, the bubbling and trickling noises of the maze of creeks around the ship, his belly pressed against the rails, feeling the coldness of them through his shirt. The way it felt to take deep, intentional breaths of fresh, cold air. He heard the door to the deck open behind him.

    “Hey, stranger!” Lup’s voice was especially perky and Barry felt that it matched the happy bubbling of the water below. He turned around, feeling uncharacteristically calm, but then noticed his heartbeat quicken as she skipped over to him. Everyone in the crew was always very friendly and happy with each other, but she seemed ecstatic to see him as she rapidly closed in on him. She half-skid to a halt and Barry twitched with the uncontrollable feeling that she was about to collide into him.

    “H-hey, Lup,” Barry said as he took a step back to avoid a crash. Lup reached over without skipping a beat and tousled his hair, still looking excited.

    “My Barold! How goes the nerd work?”

    “Not -- great,” his tone took a downward turn, even though he was simultaneously blushing just a bit at her calling him  _ her  _ Barold . “I’m actually getting pretty frustrated. I don’t even really know what I’m looking for, and the light is so -- distracting, I guess.”

    “Well! Maybe I can come and help by being a counter-distraction,” she said, briefly setting her hand on his shoulder. “I’ve got lots of stuff to share about what Taako and I have been doing in town! There’s so much neat stuff here. You should get away from the ship for a bit and come check things out!” She seemed barely able to contain her energy and was lightly bouncing up and down by rocking onto her toes and the balls of her feet. He chuckled, highly entertained by her buzzing enthusiasm and already feeling a bit better because of it.

    “Yeah, that actually sounds nice. Let me know whenever you go out next and I’ll come with?”

    “That’s a copy, my nerd,” and she lightly bumped his shoulder with a fist, like a dad might do to their son, before bounding across the deck and back inside.

    Barry smiled to himself and looked at his feet for a moment before turning back to looking out over the landscape. After thinking a bit, he realized that he  _ had _ found out something pretty meaningful about the light. The fact that it was so -- desirable was a significant trait worth developing tests and hypotheses around and not just something to be frustrated by. Even as he was there trying to clear his mind and even as he was talking to Lup, he found his thoughts drifting back to it. He wanted to go back into the lab to see it, and not just because of his dedication to his work, but because he found himself wanting to be near it. He shuddered, feeling creeped out at the thought and worried about that desire growing. He decided that he might even need a couple days worth of a break from it before returning to work. That wasn’t something that he normally did, but it seemed like a good idea in that case. He spent the rest of his time out on the deck focusing on what it would be like goofing off and going into town with Lup.

***

Lup woke up earlier than she meant to the next day and couldn’t get back to sleep. Not that she needed to really get much sleep, but she typically liked to anyways. Taako was still out, arms and legs wrapped around a body pillow, nestled in their blanket nest. She gently got out of bed and decided to go and make something fun for breakfast for everyone. She settled on crepes with an assortment of the edible fruits they had found not far from the ship.

    In the kitchen, she went into autopilot. She wasn’t quite as good of a cook as Taako, but she was still better than most could ever hope to be. As she got to work with fluid ease, her mind wandered to plans for the day. She was meaning to follow up on the offer to take Barry out into the town; possibly with Taako or maybe one on one. Taako might dip out early to go see his boys, after all. She had tried to convince him to maybe cool off on them a bit so that he wouldn’t be so emotionally distressed. They started going out together and had been taking advantage of the local food and shopping and social events, but he was pretty hung up on them and still wanted to visit frequently after she had roped him into exploring other parts of the town. Her mission to support (and distract) her brother had been keeping her away from the Starblaster and as a result, she hadn’t really been able to work with Barry. She wanted to get back into the lab with him, especially with them getting a hold of the light, but she felt uneasy about leaving Taako alone for an entire day. If the pattern so far continued, their time was growing short on that plane, and she saw how that was weighing on him.

    Just as Lup was realizing that she was going to be finishing well before most of the crew would be awake, Barry stumbled into the kitchen in pajama pants and t-shirt, eyes barely open and his brown, wavy hair even messier than usual. He was startled by Lup’s presence in the kitchen and was suddenly much more awake upon noticing that he wasn’t alone.

    “Oh, uh - just came in here for water.” He was painfully aware of his disheveled state and was cursing himself for assuming that no one else would be up. And of course it had to be Lup, out of everyone.

    Lup was glad at that moment that she had made the decision to cook so early. Barry was an adorable mess, and it was endlessly cute to her how easily embarrassed and flustered he got. And, she had been having fun seeing all the other sides of him since they had started spending time together. Groggy, thirsty pajama Barry was now added to her collection. She beamed at him. “Hell yeah man, get your hydration on.”

    He paused and then timidly shuffled over to the cupboard for a glass and then to the sink. Eyeing the elaborate breakfast that Lup was cooking he forgot his embarassing state for a moment and mused, “Oh wow, you must’ve gotten up early. That looks amazing.” She had created several different sauces from reductions of various fruits, as well as fresh fruits cut neatly and fanned out on a plate along with a row of small bowls filled with various toppings. It was an attractive little set-up, and there was also a growing pile of crepes that she was keeping covered and warm.

    “Yeah, couldn’t really sleep, and then totally didn’t even think about how soon this would all be done. Just bored as hell and didn’t know what else to do,” she shrugged. “Hey! If you don’t haaave to go back to sleep, what do you say to taking an early breakfast out on the deck? I swear, I’ve been getting high on the sun and air here, it’s crazy invigorating. We can get pumped up for going out on the town later!”

    Barry’s eyes widened and he stumbled over his words. “Uh, yeah, absolutely, that um, sounds really great, Lup. I’ll uh - go get dressed and stuff.”

    “Psh, everything’s already done and I’m in my ‘jams too, anyways. You should stay comfy! Besides, it’s too late now -- I’ve seen you without your jeans, you can’t ever take that back.” She winked and Barry blushed and choked out a kind-of laugh while Lup whipped around and started making plates for them.

    He was nervous and a bit uncomfortable at the idea of spending even more time in sleep clothes outside of his room and especially out on the deck. But, he admired Lup’s spontaneity and carefree approach to things so much, and seeing how much fun she had and how loved she was by everyone, he had been trying to loosen up a little bit and go along with her whenever she encouraged or invited him to do something. Everything had changed in all of their lives drastically just a few years ago; he could afford to change a bit, too. He had no idea how long he was going to be with the crew, but he had even more reason than ever now to want to be liked by his colleagues. Lup had definitely seemed to warm up to him more and more, and she was basically coolness personified. He felt very lucky, albeit a tiny bit confused, that she was the first out of the crew that had ended up befriending him and working so closely with him (though he still got teased by her plenty, especially when Taako was around). He was a little bit afraid and disappointed that maybe that had come to an end though, seeing as he had barely seen her over the last couple of months. But, being invited to go out, and then to a spontaneous outdoor breakfast with her, had him feeling hopeful that they were still in the process of becoming legitimate friends.

    Lup was excited that she was taking Barry a little bit outside of his comfort zone. Of all of the crew members, she felt that he was holding back the most and needed to come out of his shell -- it had been over two  _ years _ , after all. She felt sure that it would make him happier, and with her ever-growing affection for the crew, she wanted them all to be happy. There was obviously much more to him than he let on; she had already learned a lot of surprising things about him just from the time they spent in the lab when they were able to just chat as friends in between work. He had so many skills and interests outside of his education and career; he just wasn’t one to brag or share or show off at all. Pretty much the exact opposite of Merle.

    She found out that he had broad taste in music with a deep knowledge of genres, musical history, and composition. He had even written his own music in the past, and upon hearing that, Lup begged him to play her some of his music if they ever found a piano. He promised that he would, and was happy that she was so genuinely interested in his creative side; he never intentionally hid it, but it wasn’t something that he had ever shared much. It almost felt like a secret that he was saying out loud for the first time.

    With their crepes assembled, they walked together to the deck and unfolded a couple of chairs for themselves. The sun was just starting to come up, spilling a warm golden hue in a halo around the light yellow orb over the dark blue sky. The contrast was vivid and they watched as the unusually slow sunrise progressed. The frigid air was warmed slightly, but was still bracing. They talked about the home world and the differences between the environment there and the one they found themselves in that cycle. They talked about things they missed, but kept the conversation light and fun; a fond reverence of their past lives.

***

    They parted for a bit after breakfast, and Barry was relieved that everyone who was awake seemed to be in the kitchen, allowing him to slip into his room without anyone seeing. He and Lup planned to walk to the town in a few hours -- after having established that, Lup just suggested that they could find lunch somewhere in town after a bit. She really wasn’t one for making specific plans and she didn’t go into any detail about what places they might go or things they could do, which left Barry to run through potential scenarios in his head over the next couple of hours. Being unprepared was a foreign concept to him, but there was no way that he was going to press Lup to behave un-Lup like. He wanted to learn to have fun her way; he would leave the plans and precise timelines for the lab.

***

    He was barely able to keep up with Lup on their walk. Even as she chatted with him, she found herself repeatedly speeding up, skipping and bouncing around. She would notice the distance developing between her and Barry and quickly close it, only to drift and leave him behind again. It was far from frustrating, though; Barry found it endearing and was once again struck by and motivated by her enthusiasm.

    The town was fairly small and was surrounded by forested areas and trail heads, but it had a decent amount of attractions nonetheless. The first place Lup took Barry was an art museum. They got coffee at a little shop in the lobby before perusing the pieces. Lup was well versed in art history and drew infinite parallels and pointed out major differences between the art they were viewing and art from their home world. Something new that Barry didn’t know about her. He listened to her intently, and remembered the art from home that he never really saw enough of. And never would, now. He could listen to Lup describe it all day, though. She was so eloquent in her observations in addition to being armed with vast knowledge.

    She hopped and skipped over to a statue that caught her eye. “This! See how translucent it is? They must have a stone similar to alabaster on this plane -- the famous statue of Isthus, the one with the spindle made of gold where she has a tapestry draped between her hands, and the folds of it are so realistic? That’s alabaster, which is why she has that beautiful translucence that makes her look so ethereal. But, it can actually lose translucence if it’s exposed to heat and starts to lose water molecules, and it just all-around doesn’t hold up well to atmospheric changes. That’s why they have this statue in a glass enclosure; they probably have something set up for temperature and humidity control in the base.”

    Barry’s heart fluttered at her talking art and science at the same time and being so excited about it. Without thinking, somewhat quietly and lacking confidence but meant to be heard, he said --

    “Who’s the nerd now?”

    And Lup slowly turned around, her mouth already agape before she faced Barry, who was regretting speaking and definitely blushing too much to hide. She playfully gasped and put a hand to her heart.

    “Bar-old. What was that you just called me?” She gave him a mischievous smile as she waited expectantly for him to answer.

    “I-i-it was n-noth -- uh, nevermind, I uh - didn’t mean anything, I was j-just --”

    “Baaaaarrryy. I  think -- that _you_ called _me_ a nerd !” And she stepped up close to him, and he was burning red and petrified, and she moved her hands under his arms and against his body and dug her fingers into his ribs, wiggling them, hard. She had pegged Barry as probably being the type that was ticklish everywhere , and it turned out she was right. He somehow turned even redder and let out a surprised, sputtering sort of laugh as he doubled over and Lup slipped her hands away. Once he looked up at her, still bent over a bit, arms wrapped around his chest from where he reflexively tried to defend himself, she looked back at him, smiled warmly, then stuck her tongue out and ran into the next exhibit.

***

     As their year wound down towards its inevitable end, Barry reflected back on his day with Lup one night as he was in bed about to sleep. Once they had returned to the Starblaster at the end of that day, they had kept incredibly busy for their remaining time on the plane. She helped him in the lab with examining the light, and she was a welcomed distraction that kept Barry’s head in a more positive space.

    That day, after the art museum, she had walked him through a small neighborhood where she saw a friendly cat that apparently needed to be pet again. Past that, there was a trailhead that led through a lightly wooded area with a couple of small creeks running through it that they had to step over at times. She had seemed incredibly excited about something that she insisted was a “surprise,” and bounced impatiently every few steps while waiting for Barry to catch up. A small clearing opened up where there was one, particularly strong looking tree with sprawling branches. Lup ran as soon as it was in view and disappeared behind it. As Barry watched while he walked towards it, he saw her suddenly swing to the side from behind it, straddling a large, horizontal piece of wood that was secured to a rope and held by a branch on the backside of the tree. Barry laughed, deeply and genuinely, in a way that he didn’t often do, and lightly shook his head at what he was looking at. And then he squirmed a bit as he realized that she was probably definitely going to talk him into getting on it.

 

***

     As they fled that time, before disappearing into the wobbliness of space and into another plane and before bursting into strings of light, they saw through the windows that the world below was not being swallowed whole by the darkness. The mass of shapeless dark hovered and shot down its pillars of inky black, swirling light -- but that time they could make out what looked like an army of shadowy figures pouring out from where the pillars met the ground. As they ascended, they saw the throngs of shadows spread across the landscape below as the cloud continued to hover. Then, its pillars shook and lost their shape and turned into whipping tendrils as the cloud began to rise up and away from the world and toward the Starblaster. They watched as masses of shadowy dots still milled around on the surface of the planet; and then they felt the ship lurch and their vision became wavy and blurred and they saw faint glowing strings forming on each other. And then the feeling of being pulled apart, the briefest moment of being completely overwhelmed with a screaming multitude of simultaneous thoughts and feelings and memories and premonitions, the sensation of incredible speed and then immediately following that, slowly melting, both warm and cold all at once. And then a snap, and there was normalcy, balance. The same feelings, the same bodies, the same placement as the day they left their home world.

    Retrieving the light didn’t change anything as far as them being able to leave the plane or their ensuing regeneration, but it definitely did something in terms of the behavior of the dark cloud. The world was crawling with small shadowy figures, but it seemed that the mass of darkness favored going after them to swallowing the world. So, maybe they had done something to help after all. 

    After looking around and taking stock of the crew surrounding him, Barry sprinted to the lab. Lup followed after him and stopped in the doorway as he approached the desk, trembling slightly. He stopped short as it sunk in.

The light was gone.

 


	4. Can't see the Forest for the Sea

     The morning after they landed, Davenport and Lucretia were taking their coffee on the deck of the Starblaster and saw the slow descent of the light of creation falling from the planet’s amber sky. It was a ways off, but as it drifted down they could tell that it fell on their side of the distant mountain they were facing. It was a pretty good lead on the light, and so early in the cycle. Lucretia set to sketching the landscape in front of her with all of the major characteristics she could pick out and a line estimating the path of where she just watched the light fall. Davenport went to inform the crew that he would be flying them closer shortly. 

 

     At the base of the mountain there ended up being a vast, dark swampland. Davenport had to land the Starblaster a ways away from where they estimated the light to have landed. There was the swampland, and on the other side of the swamp furthest from the mountain, was an incredibly thick forest. Beyond that, there was finally some clear space with firm ground and Davenport expertly centered the ship in the clearing. They had been able to see the light falling in front of the mountain, but then it disappeared behind the trees. They felt certain that it was closer to the mountain and therefore possibly in the swampland, but it could very well have been somewhere in the forest. 

 

***

 

    Barry, Lup and Lucretia were the first to set out to explore their surroundings and start searching for the light. As they entered the forest, they were immediately struck by how strange it was. The trees were unusually dark, and everything inside the forest had heavy undertones of blue and black; very different from the verdant green on top of the forest that they saw while flying over it. There was a steady decline as they walked into it, and as the ground got lower the trees seemed to get taller, until they were walking through tall dark trunks, and the branches and leaves were far, far above them. Barely any light made it through; enough so that Lup and Barry both conjured spheres of light, hovering slightly above and in front of them. They stood on either side of Lucretia in order to spread out the light evenly; mostly for Lucretia and Barry’s sake, as Lup was able to see in the darkness without an issue. 

 

     “This whole sitch is making me feel oogie,” Lup said, breaking the silence that had fallen over them as they walked. “Not into it at alllll.” Barry felt himself lighten up a bit at Lup’s habit of expressing serious thoughts in a funny way -- he wished that he could do that instead of internally spinning his wheels into the ground over anything that made him anxious. Even then, during the silence, he repeatedly thought about something suddenly crashing through the trees at them, and his brain loved to imagine disaster situations incredibly vividly; he could almost hear the noise, and he had an involuntary shiver and then tensing up of his back as he felt that something was directly behind him every few minutes. His back was going to be killing him later. 

 

     Lup gasped and Barry’s breath momentarily left his body. Lucretia turned to look at her, calm and collected as usual. Lup was staring into the distance, beyond their sphere of light and she looked fixated on something, but not necessarily alarmed. 

 

     “There’s something -- swimming?” She squinted; even with her superior vision, she was having trouble processing what she saw dipping in and out of her line of sight and weaving through the trees. “Blue-grey, curved back, that tapers straight into a long kind of pointy head? Beak? Fleshy beak and head? Long body, more than ten feet -- two fins towards the front and like a horizontal fan at the end of the tail… oh, and two sort of little fins on the underside of the body. And, my dudes?” she stopped squinting and relaxed her posture while looking over to them. “Its uh -- teeth situation does not look super welcoming.” 

 

     Barry recognized her description as being some sort of whale, and what possibly could have been a dorudon -- a made up, mythical creature back home. In legend it was an extremely hostile creature, violently shredding through any living thing in its sight. Barry felt the chill that had been contained to his back spread through his entire body. He couldn’t see it and it could be coming at them from any direction and his body  _ felt  _ that. But, before his thoughts could carry him away any further, Lup inhaled loudly, deeply. 

 

     “Ah, shit,” she said under her breath, and before she could react or say anything else, they all heard a loud whooshing and felt a giant gust of air collide into them, and a second later the face of the creature became visible to Barry and Lucretia as it swam through the air above them at an amazing speed. There was a glimpse of a slightly open mouth, lined with huge, yellowed teeth, and Barry saw a single eye, pitch black and inset. It passed over them and was gone as soon as they were able to see it. 

 

    “So,” Lucretia started, but then paused for a solid moment. “Didn’t seem interested in us, unless it’s doubling back.” They were all dead quiet for a minute. The air was unsettlingly still. “Sounds like it’s far gone, though.” 

  
  


     Another moment of complete stillness and silence passed between them until Lup let out the breath she had been holding. 

 

     “Yeah, well -- I think I’m goooooood?” she said, with a long, upward sweeping inflection. Barry nervously chuckled, broken out of the sort of trance of fear that had gripped him. That was just generally scary what happened, but he also really  _ really  _ didn’t want any of them to die — well, at all, but especially not after having just started out their year. 

 

     “Yeah. I’m with you there, Lup.” They both waited a moment for Lucretia to say something. Once she realized that they were waiting on her, she simply said, “I’ll defer to you two on whether we head back.” How very Lucretia of her. 

 

     “Welp, Luc, Barry” and Lup stepped between them and put her arms limply over their shoulders and swiveled them all as a unit back toward the direction they came from. “I say we get what we know so far back to the crew before we’re all swallowed whole by some sorta swimming air demon.” She patted Lucretia’s shoulder before dropping her arm and Barry got his hair ruffled by her other hand. And they cautiously headed back to the Starblaster together.

 

***

 

     Over the next few weeks, the crew learned more about their surroundings. Deeper and deeper treks into the forest continued with different crew members until they started to feel fairly comfortable with it. So far they had run into a variety of animals, none of which seemed bothered by them. The forest was filled with types of life they had never seen, but that had the general appearance of sea creatures. And, like the carnivorous whale they saw the first time, everything swam in the air through the trees, except for the handful of things that crawled or scuttled, or the things attached firmly to tree trunks, undulating and waving with the sluggishness of moving through water that didn’t exist. 

 

     They were able to determine that some of the smaller fish-like creatures that frequented the edges of the forest in small schools were edible, and Taako was having a blast experimenting with the unusual flavor profiles and textures of the meat that Magnus brought to him. On one of Magnus’s foraging outings Lup had elected to come along with him and, as had become custom with them, they rattled off crass jokes and punched each other in the arm; a lot. After just entering the forest, Magnus tripped over one of the melon sized rocks that littered the ground of the ‘shallow’ edge of the forest. 

 

     “Ah, butts.” Magnus winced as he felt how badly he had stubbed his toe. 

 

     “Oh wowza, Magnus, check out this hot new weirdness.” Lup was bending over the rock that Magnus had just bowled over and examining a spot where a chunk had been kicked off of it. Magnus hopped back to look and cringed at the sight of blood. And then some kind of tissue and sinew showing and -- 

 

     “The fuck!” burst out of Magnus’s mouth as he put together that what he was looking at was showing from  _ inside  _ the rock, and not something that was living on the outside of it or scraped off from some other animal. And it was  _ pulsating.  _

 

     “Aaaah shit, Lup. What is it? Is it alive? Is it in pain? Is it dying?” 

 

     Lup sighed as she stood up from her crouching position over the rock. “Bro, you know I don’t have the answers to any of that, right?” Magnus’s eyes were getting that pleading and panicked lost-puppy look and were on the verge of misting up. She sighed again, with a tone of exasperation, before offering Magnus honest input. 

 

     “I mean. As far as what we know about life forms, this  _ looks  _ like it’s alive. My assumption would be that it feels pain, missing a chunk of itself and all. No clue if it is dying. But who really knows everything about the planes we’ve been to. Maybe pain doesn’t exist? Maybe all these funky creatures are the equivalent of what we consider vegetables consciousness-wise. But,” and she paused, wrinkling her nose while thinking on how to put what she was saying. “If the concepts of life and pain are generally the same here as what we know them to be, I would say maybe put this thing out of its, uh…  _ unfortunate  _ state.” 

 

     Magnus nodded solemnly, already knowing that was the answer. He barely hesitated before grabbing the axe he had brought and swinging it down on the rock, splitting it apart and revealing that the entire inside of the rock was flesh. Magnus pouted and Lup tried not to laugh at her friend who was somehow simultaneously tough as nails and soft as a kitten.

 

***

 

     “Yo, Bear Bear,” Taako called out as he and Lup appeared arm in arm at Barry’s open bedroom door. “You got time today to test out if some weird junk we found is edible?” 

 

     “Umm, yea-s-sure -- okay?” Barry adjusted his glasses and tried to hide his surprise; he had completely forgotten that his door was open. He even kind of forgot that he was in his room and not the lab. One side of his face was red where he had been resting it against his hand while sitting at his desk pouring over a book. 

 

     Lup was grinning ear to ear as Taako held up a jar packed with a fleshy, blobby mess. “Fuckin’ weird, right Barold?” Lup said with glee. “Found it inside a rock Magnus smashed. If we can eat it and it doesn’t suck, we’ll be set. They’re alllll over the place out there.”

 

     “Uh, y-yeah. Lup. That  _ is  _ weird.” Barry impulsively went to push his glasses up again, but they didn’t need it. He fidgeted kind of nervously for a moment while the excited twins smiled expectantly at him. “I mean, um -- I guess leave it in the lab and I can, uh - probably get it done by tonight?” 

 

     “Woo! Barold!” Taako cheered throwing both hands up, jar still clutched in one as he turned to walk to the lab, his hands remaining up as he jutted his hips side to side with each step. Halfway down the hall, his voice fading away, he yelled to no one “Gonna cook the fuck outta this!” 

 

     Lup started to follow Taako, but then leaned back into view and clutched the door frame so that Barry could only see her hands and her head peeking in at him. She smiled, winked and said “Let me know when you start so that I can help out. I’m gonna go have a beer with Magnus. Homeboy can hunt, but then he goes and accidentally hurts something and unravels -- poor sensitive little soul is all shaken up.” And her head disappeared from the doorway as she turned down the hall and skipped away. 

  
  


***

 

     The crew took a day to themselves before gearing up to make an attempt at getting to the swamp. They had been able to search deep into the forest without incident and were fairly certain of the amount of time it would take to reach the swamp’s edge. The only issue was that if they headed out at the first signs of morning, they would most likely reach the swamp at night, and they didn’t want to traverse a new landscape in the dark. Since they had become comfortable enough with the first several hours of the trek through the woods and knew that they would be thrown into darkness during that bit anyways daytime or not, they decided that they would leave at sundown the next day, travel the woods at night, and hopefully arrive at the swampland early morning. 

 

     At the beginning of their day off, Lup pranced into the lab wearing an oversized shirt with shorts and socks up to her knees, hair messy from sleeping in a loose braid, and carrying two mugs of coffee. 

 

     “My nerd. How did I know you’d be in here?” Barry shut the book in front of him upon hearing Lup’s voice and swiveled around in his chair to face her.

 

     “Hey, Lup. How’s your morning?” 

 

     “Oh, enough with the pleasantries, Mister Bluejeans,” she said teasingly while setting one of the mugs on the counter in front of him, next to his book. She pulled over the other rolling chair and sat near him with both hands on her coffee, warming herself with the mug pulled near her while nestling her body into the chair, like a bird settling into a nest. 

 

     Barry cracked a small smile from the corner of his mouth. “Cold?” he asked her. 

 

     “Only like. All. The. Time,” and she lightly huffed. “But yknow, not enough to bog myself down with a sweater or pants. I wanna feel freeeee,” and she stuck one hand up as she pushed a foot against the floor to spin herself in the chair, sustaining the ‘eeeee’ for the whole spin. As Barry started to chuckle, Lup grabbed the counter to abruptly stop her spin and leaned in close to him. Her face was suddenly serious and Barry was instantly quieted, cheeks starting to flush. 

 

     “If you,” she began slowly, heavy emphasis on each word, “are not out of this lab and done working for the day and hanging out with us in an  _ hour  _ \-- I will come in here and drag you out there myself.” She leaned back into her chair, suddenly switching back to being casual. “Or, yknow, maybe I’ll have Magnus come in here and carry you out. Whatever feels most appropriate at the time.” 

 

     Barry untensed and exhaled. “Uh, y-yeah, sure, will do. Geez Lup, you really made me think something was wrong there for a minute,” and he looked down and pushed up his glasses while laughing softly. 

 

     “Oh. There  _ will  _ be something wrong if you don’t heed me, Barold.” She popped up out of her chair and started to gracefully stride out of the room. Reaching the door, she whipped around, careful not to spill her coffee, and sternly held out her other hand with her index finger pointed upward. “One hour.” And she dipped out. And Barry heard her disembodied voice yell out on her way to the common area, “Heed me, Barold!” 

 

***

  
  
  
  
  


     The team that headed out to the swamp was made up of Lup, Taako, Lucretia, Merle and Magnus. Davenport had been teaching both Lucretia and Barry how to pilot the Starblaster; they thought it best to have as many crew members as they could be adept at piloting the ship, just in case things went “tits-up,” as Lup always so eloquently put it. He had already had a fair amount of time training Lucretia between her chronicling, but hadn’t spent enough with Barry yet as he had been fairly busy in the lab. Davenport had been making sure that everyone had a general grasp of it. At least enough to get them out of there; even if it wasn’t very gracefully. He would get into it more with everyone eventually, but for the time being he was focusing on drilling down into the more complex details with Barry and Lucretia, since Davenport thought them to be the least hap-hazardous out of the group. 

 

     While Davenport was sitting out on the deck with Barry going over what his general training plans were, Lup waved up at Barry as they headed out, and it almost looked like Taako gave her a sidelong glance, like he was watching out for something. They disappeared into the forest and Barry couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Not that he didn’t like Davenport or wasn’t looking forward to learning more about the Starblaster -- he had just been having so much fun lately with - everyone. 

 

***

 

     Several hours deep into the forest, a little ways past the furthest distance they had previously gone, they entered a somewhat circular clearing with a diameter of about 30 feet. The trees lining the edges of the clearing were thickly covered at their bases by some sort of bioluminescent, jelly-like growths in the form of varying sizes of bubbly clusters. Not knowing anything about the growths and not having their science officer with them, they made sure to keep some distance between them and the bases of the afflicted trees while they rested. The good thing about the blobs, though, was that their bioluminescence was bright enough to completely light the circle, allowing Lup and Taako to dismiss their orbs of light. 

 

     Lucretia always had sketchbooks and journals with her, but Lup had thought to bring along one of her sketchbooks on this outing as well. She had been neglecting drawing lately -- the desire to draw came and left in waves for her and it didn’t feel like something that she could actually diligently practice at. Unlike Lucretia, who immediately set to drawing extremely accurate, life-like drawings of the little seedling plants around them that were trying desperately to grow in a place where they would soon shrivel from a complete lack of natural light. Lup started with drawing the bubbly growths, but shortly moved on to sketching out whatever thing popped into her head, as she usually did. 

 

     Merle had sat down for a few minutes before laying down on the dirt, placing his hands over his chest and twiddling his thumbs together. He seemed deep in thought, almost meditating after a while. Lup was always surprised whenever she saw him serious or serene, and then she would remember that he was a cleric after all, and that’s how he was supposed to be. But, on second thought, she decided it would be pretty boring if he were more consistently cleric-like. Gods bless his weird and sometimes annoying little soul. He definitely kept things interesting. Meanwhile, Taako shuddered at the sight of Merle lying down; he was going to have so many nasty little pieces of dry plant stuff and dirt and maybe even dead bugs in his hair when he got up, and Taako was going to have to  _ look  _ at that for the remainder of their hike. 

 

     While Taako was judging Merle, Magnus was sitting near Lucretia, absolutely mesmerized. 

 

     “You can just make that? That’s amazing! Your drawing looks even better than the real thing, I could never do something like that.”

 

     Lucretia smiled softly and continued to work on her drawing, but was obviously flattered. “Thank you Magnus, that’s very kind of you to say.” 

 

     Lup sidled up next to Lucretia, who was now somewhat crowded by Magnus and Lup flanking her.

 

     Lup admired the in-progress drawing for a moment. “How long did it take you to learn to draw like that, Luc? It’s so perfect.” 

 

     “I took a few art classes in scientific illustration. I became very interested in botany, so I mostly kept with that, though I can do fauna or skeletal structures also, but not up to standards.” She lifted her hand from her paper and scrunched up her face a bit as she examined it. She didn’t move her eyes from her drawing as she continued. “I never really thought about actually being an illustrator; it’s just something I enjoy and find relaxing.”

 

     “Ooh, you could bring sketches of things you find back to Barry. I’m sure he’d be so into them and maybe even able to do something sciency, like -- catalogue a plane’s flora or find some kind of cool, meaningful pattern or connection or any of that nerd stuff he’s so good at.” 

 

     “You know? I  _ could  _ do that,” Lucretia responded thoughtfully. “I kind of forgot that there is actual potential value and practical usage of scientific illustrations that could maybe even be helpful or informative to us -- pretty silly of me.” 

 

     Lup smiled warmly as Lucretia quietly went back to drawing. She was kind of a massive nerd too, and Lup dug it. Maybe Lucretia and Barry should spend more time together? She could probably try and help with that.

 

***

 

     While leaving the clearing, all of them being careful not to touch the foreign substance, Lucretia tripped. There was a small log behind the tree that she was passing by  that had a jagged broken branch jutting out of it, tilted upward. It caught her pant leg, just above where she had it tucked in her boots; something they all did exactly for minimizing the chance of getting caught or tripping. It had torn through through the material and left a decent scrape on her leg. And, upon further investigation, they saw that there were some small growths that had just started to form on the edges of the branch that scraped her. 

 

     Lucretia took a deep breath, slowly, calmly. “Well. That’s one way to find out if it’s safe or not.” There was no hint of irony or sarcasm in her voice -- it was a statement of fact, and everyone tensed with the realization that they could end up watching Lucretia die. 

 

     “Yo, Merle. You wanna like, step in and do something about this?” Taako made a sweeping gesture from Merle to Lucretia, trying to draw the dwarf’s attention to the situation unfolding that was exactly what he was there to help with. 

 

     “Oh, uh yeah, yeah totally. I got this.” Merle stepped over to Lucretia and hovered both hands over the wound and a faint white light started to grow, but then quickly faltered and faded out. He furrowed his brow and moved his hands away to take a look. Most of the scrape had healed over, but there were some bits where the skin was still broken, specifically towards the center where the injury was a bit deeper. 

 

     “Uuuuuugh,” Taako groaned loudly as he threw his head back and slumped his shoulders in frustration. “What is it this time, old man? Didn’t sleep well? Tummy ache?”

 

     “No, no,” Merle waved a dismissive hand towards Taako while continuing to look closer at the wound. “Nothing like that; I’m good. But, I don’t think this stuff cottons to my magic.”

 

     “Stuff?” Lup asked. 

 

     Merle pulled away from his examination and looked over at Lup. “There’s some of that bubbly fungus junk or whatever in there. And I don’t know if it’s just my eyes, but it looked like it was getting bigger as I watched it.” Lucretia’s face dropped. Magnus looked overwhelmed with concern, sort of moving back and forth as if there was something he should be doing. Lup was trying to not freak out and instead prepare herself to take control of the situation.

 

     Taako was of course worried and taking this whole thing very very seriously, of course of course. But dear gods, when Merle turned to face Lup, Taako was subjected to a full view of the back of his head and there was so much forest floor garbage in it that he wanted to yartz. 

  
  


***

 

     Lucretia was soon gone after being scraped. The stuff grew fast, bubbling out from her ankle until it reached about the size of what they had seen on the trees. A variety of bubbles, the biggest being about grapefruit sized. Lup was determined to keep Lucretia with them, and had Lucretia put an arm around her so that she could help her walk. As the cluster grew, it brushed up against Lup’s leg and some of the dewy secretions from the largest bubble left a wet spot on her pant leg that seeped through enough to touch her skin. They soon found themselves having to bury Lucretia, being sure to take her pack and keep her journal and sketchbook safe, and to spend a quiet moment for her before moving on. Upon reaching the edge of the swamp was about when they learned that it didn’t just need to enter a wound; even touching the growths wasn’t safe. Unfortunately that lesson came from Lup noticing that gelatinous bubbles were beginning to grow underneath the fabric on her leg from where she had rubbed against the growth on Lucretia. Merle tried to help, but it seemed that the growth was just not responsive to any healing or cure for poisons or disease. They stumbled on the thought that maybe they were making things even worse -- maybe the healing effects were actually helping the steadily growing mass of bubbles. Taako grew furious with the helplessness he felt. He tried to use a tightly controlled flame to burn at the growth while not burning Lup, but the bubbles seemed to only sweat out more of their dewy secretion. Merle thought he saw a familiar plant in the distance, one that had thin, razor sharp edges. He thought that maybe the growth could be safely cut away and removed with the right thin and sharp tool fashioned from that plant. He decided to at least try and get something done and wandered off by himself toward the far off plant while Magnus and Taako had their full attention on Lup. He stepped onto a bit of ground that looked firm, but wasn’t. He was pulled into the swamp, alone, and the others couldn’t figure out what happened to him. 

 

     And then it was just Magnus and Taako. And Taako was leaning face first into a tree, trembling and sobbing. He couldn’t move himself away; he was scared that he would see her. Magnus squeezed Taako’s shoulder and then turned to pick up Lup and carry her a little bit away, behind some of the brush that dotted the edges of the swamp. It wasn’t easy to see her like that. He focused on what he could control and found a good spot to start digging. 

 

     When they made it back to the Starblaster, they emerged from the woods with Magnus carrying Taako piggyback because his legs had been shaking and his eyes were too flooded to see straight. 

 

     He knew that she would be back, but he had never been in a situation where it was impossible to see her for any amount of time, ever. And really, he didn’t actually  _ know  _ that she would be back. He didn’t  _ know  _ anything for sure. What if they only got those three regenerations? What if that was it? Taako crumbled under the weight of the “what if” questions in his head and was inconsolable for the rest of their time there. 

 

***

 

     After a few solemn rounds of drinks with everyone except Taako, who had confined himself to his and Lup’s room, Barry was the only one still awake and in the common room. The palpable heaviness of three of them being so suddenly gone was too much. Everyone just wanted to be alone and to sleep. Barry was also happy to be alone, but was wide awake; uncomfortably so. 

 

     The packs belonging to their fallen friends were set out on the table so that they would be there waiting for their sorely missed owners once they regenerated. Taako had been flipping through Lup’s sketchbook earlier, finding some comfort in that little piece of her. It was lazily placed on top of her bag, open to a page full of messy doodles. Encouraged by the couple of drinks he had, Barry walked to the table and carefully leaned over to peek at the open pages. He wouldn’t dare pick it up and look through it; he even felt kind of bad looking at the pages that were lying open. But, he felt compelled to at least take a cursory glance before he continued to walk to his bedroom. 

 

     The pages were filled with small, chaotically placed drawings of all kinds of subjects in all kinds of styles. Some were sketchy and boxy, some were wispy and loosely defined, some had been lightly mapped out and then gone over with cleaner lines and fleshed out with details and shading. A few were of a flower that Barry recognized as being from the last cycle. He couldn’t pinpoint why, but the way she had captured it felt full of some sort of emotion. There were also all kinds of little shapes with faces in them filling the spaces between larger drawings; circles, free form blobs, something like a wavy noodle. And there was one very detailed apple with a cartoonish face wearing an expression of extreme shock and anguish. There was a bite taken out of it, and a little speech bubble above it that just said "Why?!". 

 

     Gods, she was so talented and interesting and smart and funny as all hell. 

 

     And he found himself missing her, desperately. 


	5. The Rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cycle Five

Barry found himself not feeling the usual rush of adrenaline or even able to fully process the terrifying spectacle of seeing a world eaten by darkness. He was even eager for the nauseating feeling of being pulled apart and strung back together to begin. 

 

Looking over at Taako who was silently staring out a window, Barry got the impression that he maybe was not all that upset about watching the darkness consume the planet of strange forests and swamps that took so many of their friends - that took Lup - away from them, even if their absence was only temporary. The tension surrounding Taako was visibly escalating as he stood there waiting, still with a little voice in the back of his head that was asking what if this is it, what if there is no more, what if she doesn’t… 

 

And then it started. Just like each time before it began as soon as Davenport piloted them into the suddenly soft and wavy space beyond the atmosphere, the route of escape that opened only once the dark cloud arrived. They saw the strings of light and felt the heavy disorientation, the pulling apart, the feeling of everything and nothing at once, and the putting back together. And everyone was there. And Barry saw Lup before noticing anyone else, and within the same second that they were all aware of themselves and able to move, Taako was already crushing her in his arms. 

 

Lup laughed a little bit, a huge smile on her face as she embraced her brother back -- until she noticed how desperate his hold on her was, how much stress there was in his body. Without seeing his face, she knew he was about to explode with tears. Her expression turned serious as she whisked him away and out of the common room where they disappeared down the hall to their quarters. 

 

Magnus was hugging Lucretia and Merle at the same time, awkwardly because of the height difference, but found a way to get his strong arms around them both at once. Barry waved at them from where he was standing behind Magnus, and Merle and Lucretia gave little waves back, as much as they could with Magnus holding them. 

 

 

***

 

After Taako and Lup had a few hours together in which Taako was finally able to let go of some of the dark feelings that had been haunting him, they took to the kitchen together. Cooking with each other was not only something that they loved to do, it was therapeutic for them as well. They went all out for dinner that night, complete with dessert and booze. Barry had joined in without any coaxing, and Taako didn’t even make a point to draw attention to it. 

 

Davenport started asking some general questions of Lucretia, Merle, and Lup. Merle’s mouth was full and he wasn’t paying all that much attention, anyways. Lucretia seemed lost in thought; she had been a little down since coming back, probably thinking over the mistakes made or the pain felt. Davenport didn’t know how to read a room. Lup jumped in and started throwing him some answers. 

“-- well, same as what Merle and Magnus said before when it happened to them; it’s like being gone for only a second.”

 

“Makes you kinda wonder about the whole afterlife thing,” Merle said after barely finishing swallowing a mouthful of food, suddenly paying attention. Lup rolled her eyes and continued.

 

“You’re just dying until -- until you're not, and then you’re back on the ship feeling totally normal.” Taako’s mood obviously soured at the mention of her death and Lup could sense him bristling.

 

“But c’mon, Capn’port, this isn’t a debriefing meeting, this is a ‘thank fuck we’re alive’ dinner. Drink now and pick our brains later!” 

 

 

***

 

In the morning, it was apparent that they had been noticed. There was a group of what looked like no less than twenty elves outside of the ship, watching and waiting. 

 

Before landing, they had observed the world below and already had some mild concerns. They saw the obvious marks of civilization; roads, farms, fences around huge fields containing little dots of animals. What they couldn’t see were any structures or settlements. The roads all seemed to lead to various spots of forest, many of them fairly smallish groves, so it seemed that maybe that was where the actual cities or towns existed. What was concerning was that there were some that looked like they had long been destroyed, and one that was actively burning. 

 

The elves outside were tall; taller than Taako and Lup, and they wore deadpan, tired faces and grayish-blue unadorned robes. They were markedly different from the twins in every way except for the traditional elven features, but even then -- their ears drooped, their long hair was thin and dull, their skin was lifeless and with no glow, like they had never been in the sun. Barry’s immediate thought when first looking at them was that it was like they were made of dust.

 

“Who are you with.” The elf at the front of their group said the question like a statement once most of the crew had exited the Starblaster to meet them; Lucretia and Merle stayed on board in case they had to get out of there (and also because Merle was not always the best or most… tactful at meet-and-greets).

 

“Hello, I am Davenport and we are with the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. We are simply a crew performing research for educational purposes and potential scientific advancement. We don’t wish to intrude on or disrupt anything, and we are happy to address any questions or concerns you may have, now or at any time in the future.”

 

When meeting new civilizations, Davenport’s policy was to be honest, but vague, and to leave any supplemental information up to whatever follow up questions were asked of them, if any. He hoped that in speaking that way, his audience would be able to read his sincerity and he wouldn’t overwhelm anyone with information they probably wouldn’t understand or need. 

 

The elf at the front, who had nothing distinguishing him as a leader or as any different from anyone else in the group, regarded Davenport with a suspicious but deeply tired expression. He slowly turned his head towards Lup and Taako.

 

“And where are you from?” 

 

“We’re with this dude,” Taako flippantly offered, pointing to Davenport. “Not from here, not involved in whatever shenanigans it looks like you got going on, don’t know, don’t care--” Lup elbowed her brother and took over.

 

“We’re also not from here, but we would be interested in knowing who you are and how we can either make sure to stay out of your way, or if there is anything we might be able to help with.” 

 

The elf looked satisfied with Lup’s response, but slowly raised his hand to point a warning finger at them.

 

“We have eyes everywhere. And if we perceive a threat, there will be no hesitation, no room for words. But if you are what you say you are, carry on. And we may take you up on the offer of help later.” 

 

The elves turned slowly and Barry thought he almost heard a tree-like creaking in their unrushed, deliberate movements as they headed back toward the road that lead to the nearest grove. 

 

 

***

 

They didn’t have a lead on the light yet, and Davenport and Lucretia were having a conversation on how they might approach the nearby elves for assistance, or if they should move elsewhere and see what other, more lively populations there might be. But so far, they did know that they were relatively safe where they were; as long as they didn’t do anything that would be considered threatening. But who really knew what parameters the elves had for that. 

 

Lup and Barry had immediately set to the lab, performing the checks and tests that had become their routine for the first few days on a new plane. While waiting on some of the results that took a bit longer, they started to bounce ideas off of each other about the “rules” of their yearly experience and of their regeneration. 

 

“So far, we know you can die from the cloud or any other way, and come back. And so far it’s always been a year. Like, I guess it takes a year to find us or catch up.” Lup was leaning back in a rolling chair idly lacing and unlacing her fingers. Barry was trying not to be distracted by the hypnotic, graceful movement. 

 

“And you can die earlier on in the year, or at the very end and still come back,” she continued. “And it’s almost like not being gone at all. There’s no feeling of time passing, there’s no feeling of -- anything. You’re just back.”

 

“And not only are we moved back to the same spots,” Barry began, “but we’re also reverted back to the same physical states as the day we left. And not just our bodies, but clothes too.”

 

“But, we remember everything,” Lup added. 

 

Barry nodded. “We remember everything. We’re just phased back to our original spots with our original clothes, injuries, body composition. It’s like there was a recording made of us that just -- loops back to the beginning once it has reached its end.” 

 

“Our recorded state,” Lup said absent mindedly as she thought over all the information that had been brought up so far. 

 

“Yeah, I uh -- huh. Yeah, that’s a perfect way to describe it, Lup. We get set back to our recorded state. Whether we end up dead or alive, regardless of when or how death occurred. When we leave a planar system, it’s like the infinitesimally small space or border between planes sets us back to the last memory it had of us. Our recorded state.”  

“The planes have borders?” Lup asked.

 

“That’s -- the best way I can think of putting it without launching into an hours-long lecture on planar theory,” Barry explained, restlessly tapping a pen on the desk in front of him, trying to put thoughts together. 

 

“Well, maybe not today,” Lup started to get up from her chair, “but you know this girl. I am  _ always  _ down to learn.” 

 

Lup stood up fully and stretched, raising her arms towards the ceiling and then dropping them abruptly, looking relaxed and a little sleepy. 

 

“Next time we have a few hours,” she squeezed Barry’s shoulder, signaling that she was heading out, “you can give me that lecture?” 

 

“Yeah! Of course, Lup.” 

 

He was  _ very  _ excited at the prospect of getting to teach his favorite topic, but was also thrown off as he felt himself blushing at her touch. But, it was only because he wasn’t used to that sort of thing. 

  
  


 

***

 

Later, over dinner, Lup and Barry shared the conversation they had in the lab with the others and told them about their new terminology for the recurring phenomenon they were experiencing. After that, Lucretia looked over at Davenport for a moment before chiming in.

 

“We’ve come up with a term, too. And I started using it in my journals because ‘the darkness’ was becoming redundant and didn’t really accurately express the gravity of this -- thing.”

 

“We’ve started calling it The Hunger,” Davenport told them, his face even more serious than usual at the mention of it. 

 

A solemn air settled over the crew as they contemplated the intimidating, but accurate title of their constant hunter. Taako was the first to break the silence. 

 

“Yeah. The fuckin’ Hunger. You nailed it.” 

 

 

***

 

After dinner and after spending some time with Taako, Lup showed up at the door of the lab where Barry was. Seeing him sitting in one of the chairs, hunched over the desk and focusing intently on something, she approached him. She found him once again completely engrossed in the same book as the last few times that she had caught him reading. 

 

“You have been more of a bookworm than usual lately, Barold.” To Barry, it was like Lup had appeared out of nothing; part because he was distracted and part because her footsteps were impossibly light and quiet. He jumped a bit in his chair at suddenly hearing her voice from less than a foot behind him. He really should have been used to her sneaking up on him. 

 

“And now that I think about it, I’ve never seen you take this long to finish a book. That’s the same one you were nose deep in last year too, isn’t it? What’s the haps?” 

 

As she spoke and before he could turn around, she bent over from her standing position behind Barry’s chair and leaned her elbows on his shoulders, folding her hands behind his neck, settling her chin on top of her arm to the side of his head, and tilted forward, looking at the book lying open on the desk. Barry, still a bit shaken from being caught off guard, stiffened at her touch and at the sudden, very close proximity of her cheek near his as she leaned in to look over his shoulder. Her hair was loose as she usually had it before bed, and he could feel it brushing his ear, grazing his neck, and then cascading down his back. Her ears twitched as she felt him reflexively tense and she stood back up, removing herself from his shoulders and placing her hands on top of the chair instead. 

 

“Oh, uh -- sorry Barry.” 

 

He turned around in his chair to face her. “Ah, n-no, it’s fine I was - just startled, that’s all. It’s okay, really.” He panicked, not wanting her to feel bad, even for a second. 

 

“Hmm. Okay,” she chirped and he could tell by her face that she immediately brushed it off. She settled into the chair next to Barry’s, the one that had basically become  _ her _ chair. “Anyways. The haps. What are they?” 

  
  


“Well, uh -- you know how the light has that weird sort of, I guess 'draw' to it?”

 

“Mmyeah.” Lup thought for a moment. “It seems like it’s not  _ as  _ bad when we’re both around it, but being alone with it is for sure spooky.” 

 

“Yeah,” Barry’s gaze became far away and his voice quieted. “Almost like it knows when it’s just you and it.”

 

Lup regarded Barry with a hint of worry. “Sooooo -- the book?” 

 

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Barry snapped out of his momentarily distant state and rubbed the back of his neck before speaking. “So, it’s this sort of older magic theory that’s about harnessing and rerouting some of your power to have a kind of -- discipline or control over your own mind and thoughts, you know -- more than usual. Like a sort of forced focus, but that’s supposed to just happen subconsciously once you get it down. It’s historically used for a lot of things; becoming immune to mind control based magics being one of those things, of course.” Barry reflexively pushed up his glasses with a forefinger. “I’ve finished it a couple of times; been trying to learn it thoroughly and practice it. Thought it -- y’know. Might uh, help with being around the light.” 

 

Lup tried to study his face without staring at him; she knew that would just make him nervous. And while that was usually adorable, she was a little concerned about him. 

 

“You’re pretty worried about being around it then, huh? Has it been getting to you that bad?” 

 

“I just really…” and Barry trailed off for a second. “J-just -- really don’t like being distracted. There’s a lot of important work to be done if we’re going to figure any of this out. When we have the light, I can’t afford any time with it being wasted.” 

 

What he said was true. He wouldn’t lie to Lup. But, he hadn’t said everything. 

 

He didn’t want to admit that he was afraid of it. 

  
  


 

*******

 

The crew ended up making a unanimous decision to move the Starblaster to somewhere else on the planet. The tired, gray elves had started to make them uneasy; the eyes that they mentioned having everywhere were less and less subtle. If they were outside of the ship, they would often see one of the elves down the road just standing, or sitting on one of the small, sloping hills, staring. If anyone from the crew waved to or called out to or noticed them in general, they would not move or react. They only watched. At one point, Lup and Barry had started out on what was meant to be a short exploratory trek around the area, but were unnerved enough to head back early after noticing that they were being steadily followed by more than one elf from more than one direction. 

 

Their next location was near a larger grove in which they were able to see at least a little bit of what was inside from where they had landed. They caught glimpses of bright, angular structures, towers spiraled with gold and lavender, and painted windows that caught the sunlight and reflected it back outward in a kaleidoscope of color. The elves that greeted them there were a bit more on par with Taako and Lup, though still -- off in a way. After hearing that they had previously been near the drab and eerie elves, they seemed even more welcoming, more willing to trade, more willing to give information and offer help. It was like they were trying to prove how much better they were than the other elves. The crew accepted their warm welcome and their help, but stayed alert. 

 

The morning after landing was particularly beautiful and the crew had all gathered on the deck; partially to survey the area, and partially to just take in some of the beauty of the sparkling grove and the green rolling hills and to spend some time with one another. 

 

Taako was leaning up against the railing of the deck, the wind blowing his yet unbraided hair back. He was lost in thought, staring into the middle distance, and was startled when Merle sidled up to him. 

 

“Seems like this whole world has plenty of your people, that’s gotta be exciting!” 

 

“I don’t have a ‘people’,” Taako responded with a scoff, going immediately from startled to irritated. “I have myself and Lup and apparently you guys.” 

 

Merle looked dejected. “Well, excuuuuuse me for trying to strike up a conversation.”

 

Taako sighed and lifted a hand to rest his forehead against. “Just… not right now, okay?” 

 

“I get it, I get it. Not a morning person. Later then, maybe!” and he tugged his beard and shuffled off to Magnus. 

As Merle left, Taako felt arms wrap around him from the side.

 

“Is my brother cranky?” 

 

He smirked. “No more than usual, Lulu. But if I am, it’s probably because my hair is a mess.” 

 

“Well then, bro,” and she rested her head on his shoulder, “let’s go get you fixed up before we face the day.” 

 

 

***

 

Things went bad fast. It had soon become clear why the elves were so welcoming and helpful upon their arrival -- they wanted something. After inviting them into the grove and into a spacious, colorful building with a multitude of painted windows that let a flood of rainbow light pour inside, they sat everyone down at a table overflowing with various fruits and jugs of some type of lavender tinted, clear alcohol. They had enthusiastically extended an invitation to everyone, but per their protocol, Davenport and Lucretia stayed on board. 

 

They were extremely pushy with their liquor, and of course Magnus and Merle were more than happy to accept free booze and didn’t notice the subtle, meaningful glares they got from the others. Lup and Taako politely took glasses but kept a non-stop conversation going with the elves, trying to cover the fact that they weren’t taking drinks. Barry lied and said that he didn’t drink at all, which elicited a sneer from the most adorned elf who had been leading the conversation and the offerings of refreshments. All of the elves were beautiful, of course, but their host was of an especially ethereal beauty. He wore several intricate braids, woven with bits of vines, unnaturally brightly colored flowers, small branches with bunches of berries on them, and strings of gold. 

 

He had introduced himself as Ryvvik, and he wasted no time in regaling them with stories of their culture’s history and the creation and origins of their complex architecture. As he got into the details of their most recent history and their interactions with -- and dislike of -- certain other elves, or really all elves other than the ones belonging to their own grove, the intent of their meeting became clear. 

 

“--and that is why,” Ryvvik extended out both arms in a gesture of finality and of waiting for acceptance, “they are a clear threat to us and we need help with… eradicating them.” 

 

“Well,” Lup began, her diplomat face on, “that’s just simply not the sort of thing that we’re here to do. And anyways, it’s definitely not something that we’re outfitted for, even if we wanted to. We have research equipment and means of protecting ourselves -- we don’t have anything for razing small towns.”

 

“But,” Ryvvik cocked his head and leaned his elbows on the table, “you have a ship. I’m assuming at the very least, you could transport a good number of us. And you’ve already met them and gotten close. I imagine you could get us close enough to get the jump on them. Would you be agreeable to something like that? We have the resources to make it worth your time, of course.” 

 

Lup smiled pleasantly. “I am sorry, Ryvvik. That’s just not something that we can do.” 

 

He smiled back warmly and mirrored Lup’s tone. “Of course. It is understood. I’m sure we can continue to help each other in other ways.” He moved on, and brought the conversation back to one of idle chatter and pleasant stories. 

 

Magnus and Merle seemed beyond buzzed after just the couple of glasses they had drank so far; and those were boys that held their liquor. As they were nodding off, still upright in their seats, Barry noticed a handful of elves that had been lounging on colorful floor cushions in various areas of the large room slowly getting up and starting to move in on them, vaguely sparkling with some sort of building magical charge. Lup was sitting next to him and he grabbed her hand under the table and lightly squeezed it; she casually tilted her head and saw from the corner of her eye what Barry was seeing. Taako was leaning on the table, fingers interlaced with his chin set on top, chatting away and basically having a charm-off with their host. Lup gently tapped him on his leg in a way that he knew meant that something was up, but to keep cool. Taako didn’t break eye contact or skip a beat in his conversation with Ryvvik, but was ready.

 

And all at once, they were almost on them. Barry grabbed Lup’s hand and she was already grabbing Taako’s with her other hand. Taako had tried to send Lup’s message down to Merle, even knowing that he would probably totally blow it by asking out loud why he was touching him under the table, but Merle was dead to the world and on the verge of snoring, slumped over in his chair. Magnus was no better and they tried to yell at them both as they passed by in a chain, hands held tight, running for the door that they came in through. The two of them were barely roused and only able to look on as the other three ran off. 

 

There were a couple elven guards that had posted up outside of the door and as the three of them ran up, the guards turned inward and came into view, blocking the door. Lup was already breaking her hand away from Barry’s and in a second, it was engulfed in a violent flame that, as she extended and twisted her hand, formed a sphere of fire that shot out at the guards, throwing them back far from the door and leaving them more than a little bit singed.

 

As they ran out the door, Ryvvik yelled incredulously, “You would just leave your people here? We’ll have their throats slit before you even board your ship!”

 

“We’re good, drunk as skunks, won’t feel a thing,” Merle called out after them, lazily waving them away as he let his head drop down onto the table.

Ryvvik shook his head in surprise at the casual acceptance of his very real threat. He intended to take whoever he could as a hostage to use as leverage — he hadn’t gotten the impression that they would so easily abandon each other. 

 

Lup, Taako and Barry made it back to the ship, which Davenport had ready to go, having heard their hurried report of the situation over their stones of farspeech as they ran. 

 

And they didn’t know what happened after that. They tried but couldn’t find a way to have one of them infiltrate back into the grove or any other potential means of performing a rescue mission that wouldn’t put them all at risk.

 

They didn’t see or hear from Magnus or Merle for the rest of that year. 

 

 

 

***

  
  


They had six months left to go after the incident. With so much time left, so much uncertainty about their safety, no lead on the light, and two of their crew members gone, they decided to mostly stay under the radar and wait out the year. If they happened to see any trace of the light, great, but they definitely weren’t going to try to interact with or ask help of anyone else for the duration of their stay. They were lucky to have the five of them. 

  
  


Once they had gotten the Starblaster to a far off, remote area with a clear view of their surroundings, they sat together and drank for their friends and for their rattled nerves. They talked about what they looked forward to once they regenerated and had everyone back. They talked about how they would spend their first day being together again. Taako planned on what he would cook for everyone and Barry joined Lup in offering to help. 

 

 

***

 

Lup spent a good portion of the rest of that year drawing. And once she had gotten back into the habit of drawing regularly, she was pretty fast and loose with her sketchbooks. She had a few different ones and would often leave one on a side table after drawing while lounging on the couch, or on the edge of the kitchen counter because she set it down to make herself a drink and forgot it. 

 

That evening, a week before the year’s end, Lup was laying on her back on the couch, holding the sketchbook over her face and drawing in it upside down. Barry was on the other circular half of the couch across from Lup, reading a book. A different one, and not even a scholarly one; a lighthearted, unchallenging, adventure fiction. As Lup was about to get up from the couch and set her sketchbook down on the side table for her to come back to later, Barry set aside his book and asked the thing that he had promised himself he would ask before the year was over.

 

“Um. Would it be okay to uh, look at your drawings?” 

 

“Oh hell yeah, my man,” and she got up from the couch and stepped over to the other side where he sat, started to hand it to him, but then quickly took it back. 

 

“My stuff is nowhere near -- like,  _ Nowhere Near  _ Lucretia’s. Just so you don’t expect too much.” 

 

She smiled down at him as he sat there, and extended the sketch book to him. He took it and tried not to look  _ too  _ excited. “I’m certain that they’re plenty good, Lup. Thank you very much for letting me take a look.”

 

“Pfft, always so polite and formal,  _ Mister Barry J. Bluejeans _ .” 

 

After he softly laughed and she ruffled his hair, he started to speak, “Actually,” -- and stopped himself short. Don’t say that, that’s  _ so  _ braggy. He wasn’t going to mean it like  _ that _ though, but that didn’t matter, it would still sound like boasting. And, he just started a sentence with “actually”. He was that guy, he just did that. 

 

But Lup heard him. And noticed that he stopped short. And there was no way she was letting that slide.

 

“What was that, Barry?” she grinned as she continued to play with his hair, walking her fingers over it and softly flicking random bits. 

 

“Uh, it’s -- it’s dumb, it doesn’t matter,” he spoke fast, trying to move on. 

 

“Baaaaarrryyyy,” she sang his name like a warning as she moved her hands to the sides of his head and tapped the tops of his ears in an alternating pattern. She half-sang again, “Baaarrryyy. I’m going to annoy you until you tell me, Baaarrry.” 

 

Barry let out a breathy chuckle and gave up. “It was just -- uh. I was going to joke, but it wasn’t funny, I just -- was going to say that if you actually wanted to be formal, it would be  _ Doctor  _ Barry J. Bluejeans, but - that’s just…” 

 

She leaned back a bit and set her hands on her hips. “Oh shit, that’s right huh? Like, of  _ course  _ you have a PhD, you’re a straight up genius. I just sorta spaced on that I guess.” 

 

Even more nervous than usual (he had just said something he wish he hadn’t, but also she just called him a  _ genius _ ), Barry stammered through his words. “It’s -- it doesn’t matter, it’s not a big deal, I was just joking --,” Lup interrupted with a ‘hush’ finger on his lips. 

 

“It’s fine. My favorite thing to call you is Barold anyways, and that won’t change.” She removed her finger, Barry sighed with relief that he hadn’t made things weird and that Lup was always just going to be very Lup to him, even when he said dumb shit. 

 

“All right!” Lup stood up straight, “time for bed!” Without breaking her stride as she walked away, she looked back and pointed straight at him with her forefinger, her thumb sticking up, made a -- pretty damn good gun noise -- and jerked her arm back as if there were recoil after the shot. “Later, cowboy!” And she disappeared down the hall. And then two seconds later from down the hallway, she yelled, “I mean Doctor!”

 

Barry shook his head and put a palm over half his face, but while smiling, a lot. Then, he remembered that the sketchbook was waiting on his lap. He eagerly picked it up and started with the first page, paying careful attention to its contents, every mark and line and smudge. He became so engrossed with each page, he didn’t realize how much time had passed. It was very,  _ very _ late. He felt heavily disappointed realizing that he couldn’t stay up any longer if he was going to sleep at all before everyone else was awake (he was a very light sleeper). 

 

He scanned through the last chunk of pages quickly, set it down, and finally walked to his room. In bed, he wondered why he felt so giddy about getting to look at a sketchbook. Maybe because it was like looking into a little piece of Lup’s brain. 

 

And she was just so… cool.


	6. A Night Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup wants to know more about Barry, but says the wrong thing.

They found themselves in a much more inviting place on their sixth year. They were able to work and trade for supplies and able to roam about freely and get helpful hints on the light. They had only caught a faint glimpse of it as it fell far far off in the distance on their second day there. The people of the rural place that they had initially landed near indicated that their capital city was in that direction. They spent another week stocking up and accumulating currency before heading out.

 

The capital was bright; tall, white, reflective buildings connected to each other with strings of dangling lights, streets lined with food carts, each one trying to be more flashy and attention-grabbing than the last. And it was brimming with entertainment options. Plentiful bars of all kinds of themes with innovative cocktails to match, arcade games and games of chance or skill in basically every establishment, clothing stores with huge street-facing windows displaying garishly colored clothes with busy patterns and glittery detailing. And, most importantly, genuinely friendly citizens. It was a welcomed change of pace from their previous year.

 

When asking around for the light, they were directed to the most central, important looking building. A much more austere structure than the ones in the rest of the city, with elegant fountains pouring from sculptures of various animals unique to that world. They were warmly welcomed inside and soon found themselves in front of a table of five wizened figures, mouths gently curved into peaceful smiles, all of their eyes closed. A large boulder sat between the crew and the table of the five leaders of the city that they learned was called Avle Dae. A single voice that represented the thoughts of all five of them emanated from the large stone. The crew was informed that their council had had the light of creation brought to them by a group of citizens who had found it. They were currently keeping it guarded and wished to study it for a bit, but said they would be happy to share access to the light, and any information they were able to glean for themselves, at a later time. In the meantime, they encouraged the crew to make themselves at home in Avle Dae, and that they would have someone call on them when they were ready to speak further.

 

***

 

Barry was feeling nervous at the prospect of possibly either having the light themselves, or at the very least being in its presence once the council was ready to share with them. Although he had been preparing himself, he still felt uneasy about working with it.

 

Trying to find a distraction while uncharacteristically lounging on the couch alone in the common room, Barry reflected back on the last cycle. It had been… very bad. But there were a few bright and interesting points that had been hard to appreciate in the moment. For example, Barry hadn’t known that there was such a diplomatic side to Lup. He found himself impressed by and thankful for that hidden skill of hers. Who knew, maybe they would have all been killed outright if she hadn’t been so adept at speaking in such an agreeable and convincing manner. She was a consistently surprising person with such a wide range of emotions and a multifaceted personality. He had been teaching her a fair bit, but he had the feeling that he could probably learn so much more from her.

  


***

  


Lup knew that Barry was well educated, had been an educator himself for a bit, and was one of the top minds in his field back on their home world, but she had never really given much thought to all of the time and work that must have taken. Her and Taako had also been in the Academy back home, and had been there six years before getting swooped up by the IPRE. And six years was nothing to an elf.

 

They were sitting out on the deck of the Starblaster, leaning back in the deck chairs and finishing up having lunch in the sun, just the two of them; something that was becoming a regular habit. Lup responded emphatically through a mouthful of sandwich to something Barry had just said --

 

“Twelve years of college!?” She balked, thought on it for a moment and then swallowed her food before talking again. “Shit, I guess that’s right. I always forget what a long ass time it takes getting a Master’s and a PhD. Damn, Barry. That’s, what -- twenty four years of school, total? That’s a good fourth of a human life. Actually, I never even really thought about it in that context before. Fuck.”

 

Barry chuckled, causing the empty plate that he had rested on his belly to shake as he leaned further back into the deck’s  outdoor reclining chair. “Well, I actually only had to stick it out for twenty one. I uh, kind of graduated high school early at fifteen.”

 

“Uh, kind of?” Lup playfully mocked him, mimicking his voice in a not-so-gracious way, her mouth full of sandwich again. “Take pride in your nerdiness, Barold. You obviously absolutely crushed it and graduated early. But still, come on; that’s a ton of time.”

 

“Yeah, it’s a lot. But, I feel like it was well spent. I love learning, and every time I accomplish something even a tiny bit helpful or make a breakthrough in research or experimentation it -- it’s the best feeling in the world.”

 

Lup smiled. Barry’s idea of fun and the things that made him happy were so different from what she was used to. She had never thought that watching someone work in a lab would be entertaining and sweet. The grins, the elation, the excitement; all of the facial expressions and emotions that he cycled through in between the long periods of intense focus had piqued her interest in his work and in scientific studies in general, and even just in -- him. The intense happiness that he gleaned from accomplishments in the lab reminded her of the joy she found in cooking and in honing her expertise in evocation.

 

She could always do with more skills and more happiness, and spending time with Barry had become a great source of both. She stumbled on the thought that she should maybe also teach Barry some things; she had been subtly trying to boost his confidence and get him in on her humor, but she had a lot more she could be teaching him directly as well.

 

“So then, you had a while after school building up your career, right? Shit, I guess I don’t actually know exactly how old you are?”

 

“Forty eight,” Barry supplied. “I taught for nine years after finishing my PhD while also doing my own research on the side. Planar theory interested me for a while and eventually became my favorite subject. I started off with the IPRE volunteering on large research projects, then got lucky enough to be hired on full time,” Barry smiled softly while reminiscing. “It was my dream job, and all of the work had been worth it.”

 

Lup was tempted to dig into him about being a huge nerd, what with him _volunteering_ to work on research projects and his _dream_ job being in planar research, and the huge, goofy smile he was wearing just from talking about work and studying. But instead, she started thinking about what his life might have been like. The long education, the teaching, the volunteering; had he ever had time for anything else? She knew he had music as a hobby, but it was hard for her to imagine such a quiet and structured life. Her and Taako had grown up with so much uncertainty that she had trouble ever making long term plans. She had made a habit of living spontaneously; staying out all night, traveling somewhere for no reason at the slightest impulse, crashing parties, creating parties out of nothing, drinking wine in a tree alone, drinking champagne under a pier with people she had just met. Basically whatever struck her fancy at any given moment. She felt positive that Barry had never really done anything impulsive. She wondered if he had ever partied -- or if he ever even had a relationship. He had never mentioned anything, but that didn’t mean much. It took a while to get anything out of the guy. Maybe…

 

“You know what we should all do tonight? We should get out to one of those neato bars they got here.”

 

“Oh uh, yeah. I can stay here with the ship so that Lucretia and Davenport can take a break.” Any time the crew had gotten drunk together or generally rowdy so far, Barry had managed to avoid the whole scenario -- or maybe he hadn’t felt invited? She thought it went without saying. But, maybe Barry needed those things to be said.

 

“Nuh-uh Barold, my man, you’re the caboose on this party train. Let Capn’port hang here, he lives for this shit. Besides, I’m pretty sure when I saw him this morning he had just gotten back in from last night sooo, whatever his particular brand of shenanigans are, he’s obvi already had his turn.”

 

*******

  


Everyone had gotten pretty sufficiently drunk with still a few hours before things started closing down. Taako was chatting someone up; Lup could tell by his face that it was bragging and not flirting. Magnus was playing some video game where you ate ghosts and Merle was watching him and loudly reacting to every good or bad thing that happened in the game.

 

Lup had just finished watching Barry play a game with falling blocks that had to be manipulated to fit together before they fell all the way. Barry was extremely good at it, but he played it down by saying that it was only a matter of spatial awareness and that was just something that he happened to be okay at. Even being a bit drunk, Barry could meticulously arrange the shapes perfectly, keeping up as the game moved faster and faster, and drunk Lup was transfixed. He caught Lup’s smile at one point, between levels. Barry noticed how when her smile was at its biggest, her mouth arced at the sides, showing even more of her sparkling teeth before dipping down into the fullness of her lips. And he internally yelled at himself for being kind of a creep and immediately trained his eyes on the screen and only the screen.

  


Lucretia had set up near the opposite wall at a small table and was writing, as always. She insisted that she wasn’t lonely or bored; she was doing exactly what she wanted to do. Someone who was sitting at the bar had been periodically looking over at her, smiling in a way that made it obvious that he thought her writing so diligently in a bar was kinda cute. He asked a waiter to get a drink for her; it was something that looked fancy in a way that really suited Lucretia. She seemed deeply confused and just sort of shrugged as the waiter left, and she continued to observe and to write and to draw everything around her, taking a sip only about every ten minutes or more. The man at the bar found it endearing and just laughed a bit to himself before turning back to his drink and letting her be. Maybe she would write something about him.

 

After Barry was all played out on the shape game, he and Lup found themselves in a booth alone, both taking a break to snack on a huge plate of some weird, crispy bits that they had gotten off of the bar menu. Lup was -- pretty drunk. She for sure could hold her own, more than most, but she had forgotten to eat much before they went out. And, she had also been having a _very_ good time trying out all of the bar’s unique drinks.

 

As they ate and drank, they talked about nothing and everything; current lives, past lives, guesses about the future. Barry brought up how he remembered on the night before their trip started how Lup and Taako won the shoes right off the feet of a couple bar-goers that they hustled at pool.

 

“I didn’t say anything at the time -- I guess I didn’t really talk much around then -- but, I thought it was pretty funny,” he looked down at the table and laughed a little as he reminisced. “The two of you were just so cool. Right off the bat.”

 

“Aww, Barold!” She reached over the table and lightly tagged his shoulder with her fist. “You’re pretty cool yourself, Bear. You just kept it hidden from us for a while you big, selfish nerd.”

 

Barry was getting better about not feeling like being teased was necessarily bad. He could handle it from Lup; it was usually pretty funny and cute. But more importantly, that first bit was a compliment. Calling him _cool_. Not something he had ever been called before or that he had ever thought of about himself.

 

“So, Barold…” Lup leaned over the table to talk closer to him, like she wanted only him to hear even though no one else was close.

 

“You’ve never said anything about your _~romantic~_ past, annnnd I basically know at least _something_ about everyone else’s at this point. Not always stuff I necessarily needed or wanted to know,” and she found Merle, still with Magnus, in her sight and gave him a squinty eyed side stare. “But you’re the only one who’s literally never said a single thing. So, what’s the scoop?”

 

“Oh…” Barry was instantly flush. He rubbed the back of his neck and lowered his eyes. “I mean. There’s uh, not much there to talk about, I guess?”

 

“Not muuuuch?” Lup asked with her signature, upward sweeping, teasing/questioning inflection. “That means there’s _something_ , Barold, hmmmmm?”

 

Barry was petrified and unable to look at Lup and normally she might have known to reel it back. But she was drunk, and she _really_ wanted to know.

 

“Oh, uh -- y-yeah, I uh— there was. One person. For a while.”

 

“Ooooh, so there was! I have _got_ to know more; I totally can’t picture you in a relationship!”

 

“Oh. I guess not, huh.” Barry looked hurt.

 

“Oh... shit, no, Barry, I didn’t mean it like that.” Lup was mortified at what she had just said as soon as she realized how it came off and at the sight of Barry’s face.

 

“It’s okay, Lup. I guess there is a sort of image or vibe I give off. I’ve been told before that I don’t seem like the warmest person, or that I’m -- I guess, closed off.” There was pain in his words, as if he was remembering the exact moment that those things were said to him.

 

“No, no. Aw damn, Bear. You’re just so -- I don’t know,” Lup covered her face with both hands for a second while letting out a deep sigh, obviously frustrated with herself. Dropping her hands, she continued, “I guess one of the things about you is how good you are at being alone? That’s hard for a lot of people. It’s like you enjoy your own company, because you definitely don’t seem lonely! That’s not it!” She leaned in close across the table, eyes pleading with Barry to understand her screw-up. “It's like, the opposite. You _never_ seem lonely. It’s not a sad thing. I think you just have so much interesting stuff about you that you could never be bored or fed up with yourself. Lots of people don’t like to be with just themselves.” She stopped rambling and thought for a second, forefinger tapping against her lips, obviously trying to regain a train of thought that her drunk mind was having a hard time holding on to.

 

Rambling. _Lup_ was rambling.

 

She took a short breath through her nose and widened her eyes as she remembered, “It’s like you don’t actually _need_ anyone. Oh! Wait! Independent, that’s the word!” she wore a loose drunken smile as she closed her eyes, crinkled her nose, and shook her head side to side, trying to be cute (and of course succeeding). “You’re _so_ independent, and it’s very cool.”

 

"Th - thank you, Lup. That means a lot."

 

Barry was smiling like crazy, his eyes shyly fixed on the table. He had been a bit hurt for a moment, but now -- Lup had so sincerely apologized and said such nice things about him. And, from what he had gleaned about her so far after the -- shit, going on six years he had known her -- he was pretty certain that he could tell some of what she was feeling from her facial expressions. Especially when they were exaggerated by her drunkenness. He also knew that she didn’t bullshit, and there was no way she would ever lie or say something just to be nice. So, it meant a lot to him, and he had no suspicion that any of it was insincere.

 

After leaning back into her side of the table and taking the last bite of food, Lup exhaled sharply and lifted up an arm and dramatically flexed. “All right! I’m back! I’m coolsies now. Let’s see. I really want to try this one,” and she pointed to a very intimidating sounding drink on the cocktail menu. “That one sounds like it’ll take you right to town.”

  


***

 

Lup realized later, when she had sobered up, that maybe Barry’s short response to her question about dating had more behind it -- what if he had been with someone at the time that they left? Thinking that he would be back to that person in a couple of months? What if it was something he never mentioned because it was painful? Something he wanted to forget? And she had cut open a wound, just because she was drunk and curious. Fuck. She couldn’t remember there ever being a time where she felt like she had said the wrong thing. Or felt embarrassed.

 

It sucked.


	7. The Lover

Over the previous six cycles, Lup had become less and less guarded and more affectionate with the entire crew. The humor and energy that she had from day one were still there, but any joking or teasing she did felt like it came from a different place. It was obvious to everyone that it was a way of showing affection rather than a way to keep people at arm’s length or just a tactic for breaking tension and lightening the mood when things got tense. It was a way of showing genuine interest and warm feelings. 

 

She had already been a bit closer and less guarded with Barry for a while longer than the others though, and Barry was infinitely perplexed by that decision. Whatever it was that had caused her to decide to be friends with him, he felt lucky. And in knowing that they were actual friends, he had started to feel more like he was in on her jokes rather than being alienated by them.

 

Lup always seemed delighted whenever Barry played back or responded positively to her teasing. And being the one to make Lup happy or excited was one of the best feelings in the world, so Barry kept learning different ways of doing that. It had become his favorite pastime. It also made him more social and open with the crew as a whole. He seldom missed chances to be with everyone when they gathered, whereas before he often opted to be alone with his work as much as he could. But he was rarely alone anymore, even when he was working. Almost all of his work was with Lup, and Lup would make him stop and take breaks and drag him out to be with everyone else until he didn’t have to be dragged anymore. 

 

Overall,  _ everyone  _ seemed significantly closer. It became more evident every year how much they all needed each other. And that they didn’t have anyone else. And that it could very well be that way forever. 

 

***

Taako was sprawled out on the couch in the common room where he had pulled every throw pillow over to his side and draped himself over them. Looking as comfortable and nonchalant as ever, he was thumbing through one of the fashion magazines that he had picked up in cycle three. He had gotten himself a stack and had been taking his time going through them, not knowing when they might be in another place with that level of civility. Magnus had been trying to coax Taako outside, going as far as to offer him a piggyback ride so that he wouldn’t have to be on the ground. Eventually, Magnus huffed and announced that he would go outside alone. 

“Sure thing, Mags, you go have fun with the mutts. Taako is good in here.” 

Magnus shrugged, and took off; he was too excited about the occupants of their seventh plane to waste any more time. The crew referred to them as puppies, because that was the closest frame of reference that they had. They found out later that they of course called themselves something different; something that loosely translated to ‘wiggles’. Or rather, they at least knew that it was definitely a word that meant something movement based. They had a few different guesses, but Magnus glommed on to wiggles, claiming it to be the cutest of the options and therefore the right one because they were all cute. 

They didn’t have the easiest time getting a lead on the light. They failed to see it fall, and the population there, while being more advanced than the canines they were used to, were… easily distracted and not of much help. They had a disjointed way of communicating but their language had been fairly easily figured out by Barry and Lup, who once again took point on learning and documenting the language of the plane they found themselves on. They had developed a pretty good system on their first cycle, and the apparently permanently juvenile dogs were all extremely eager to talk, which made things even easier. Taako didn’t join in on decoding an animal language that time though; in the first week, he had been jumped on by a puppy with muddy paws, ruining a flouncy, white blouse that he honestly should have known better than to wear out in the field anyways. He refused to spend time around the dogs any more after that. 

They had learned that the puppies only had a name for their entire world; there were no towns or cities or separation of any kind, really. The name sounded something like ‘borf’ and simply meant ‘us’. After Barry and Lup had figured out their language and learned the basics about the plane that would be their home for the next year, they continued to look into the culture, history, and way of life, and spent a good amount of time with the puppies in general for months after their arrival. 

Barry was such a sweetheart; when they had first set out into their new world, the moment that a couple of the huge puppies came up to him excitedly he didn’t hesitate to start petting and scratching them, using both hands and laughing as they clumsily pushed up against him. He was obviously a lot more comfortable with dogs than he had initially been with the meerkats back in their first cycle. He had no problem with getting licked on the face; he just smiled and reached over to scratch their ears while rubbing his forehead up against theirs. Lup watched, wearing the biggest smile. She had never seen Barry being affectionate. It was basically the most adorable thing and she was dying over it. He had a completely different body language than usual and actually looked like he was living in the moment. It was a nice thing to see after having watched him be so frequently worried about damn near everything. 

Lup thought that it often seemed like he was holding the weight of a huge responsibility that he had put entirely on himself to do as much for the whole crew as he could. And he did that at the detriment of not getting as close to them as everyone else was getting with each other. It was like he didn’t need to know them all that deeply or develop the same kind of bond as they were all forming for each other in order to want to help them; and he wanted to help them all desperately. So, he spent most of his time working instead of being with them. 

Upon realizing that, Lup mulled over it for a while, weighing its meaning. Barry really was a loving and affectionate person, it seemed. He actually loved very easily. He just had a different way of showing it than most, and she was starting to see that. She thought back to their drunk conversation from the previous cycle, and how he mentioned that he had been told that he was closed off… “ _ fuck that person,” _ she thought to herself. They just hadn’t taken the time or weren’t paying enough attention. She felt pretty sure that Barry would do  _ anything  _ for  _ anyone _ to help them. He was so sweet like that, even if he didn’t outwardly project a sweet personality. And you know what? He didn’t need to. He showed it by  _ doing, _ not by acting. And that was much more genuine. And noble. 

Genuine. Noble. Definitely accurate words to describe Barry. 

***

 

“I’ve barely seen you this whole week,” Taako whined. 

 

He and Lup were in the kitchen, cooking together, laughing. Lup had stealthily stuffed an ice cube down the back of Taako’s shirt while she was passing behind him to grab a sifter from the other side of the kitchen. After yelping and shaking it out, he came up behind her as she was reaching into the cupboard (laughing uncontrollably at the noise her brother had just made) and licked his finger and stuck it in her ear. He then hopped over to the sink to thoroughly wash his hands, of course, and she rushed up to reach into the stream of water to splash him in the face. She then ran out of the kitchen, into the common room before he could do anything to get her back. She ran over to Barry who was reading on the couch, jumped up onto the cushion and hid behind him, pulling a throw blanket over herself. Barry, confused, started to say “What’s up, Lu-” but was interrupted by Taako bolting into the room, jumping onto the couch in front of Barry and reaching over him to grab at the blanket covered Lup behind him, hanging over his shoulder and struggling as Lup scrambled to hold the blanket securely over her head. Barry dropped his book to the ground, Lup was laughing hysterically and thrashing behind him as Taako wiggled over Barry’s shoulder and crashed into Lup. He wormed himself under the blanket and dug his hand into the one tiny space where Lup was ticklish; behind her knee. 

 

Not knowing what was happening and not knowing what to do about the feeling of Lup and then Taako squirming behind him and damn near kicking him in the back, he scooted away to the other side of the couch and just watched as they emerged from under the blanket, tears in their eyes and their laughter coming out in heavy, out-of-breath wheezes. As they got up and walked back towards the kitchen, Taako broke into a run when he heard his handmade pasta starting to boil over. Lup, still snickering, moved her fingers into Barry’s messy hair and tousled it while passing by. 

 

“Sorry for using your body as a hideout, Barold. Didn’t know it was going to get that rowdy.” Barry laughed a bit, still confused and flustered as Lup disappeared back into the kitchen. And that was when Taako started complaining about not seeing Lup enough. 

 

“Haven’t gotten to cook or rough-house or anything with you all week, I was starting to think you’d forgotten your only twin.” 

 

“So dramatic,” Lup teased. “You’re the one that doesn’t want to do any work with us this cycle.” 

 

“I don’t like hyper baby dogs,” Taako pouted. “Besides, why do you always have to be the nerd’s sidekick -- let Merle be useful for once and do the whole assistant researcher gig with Barold.” 

 

Lup scoffed. “Right, that would go super well. And also hey -- I’m not a sidekick or assistant,” she raised her nose into the air with an indignant huff, “I’m a fellow researcher. A partner.” 

 

“Uuuugh, the nerd’s rubbed off on you,” Taako threw his head back, exasperated, but continued to stir the sauce he was working on. “ _ My  _ sister is a powerful badass and a rocking cook. How are you not bored to tears taking notes and talking science with the super-serious dude who thinks dirt is interesting and can make an afternoon out of poking leaves with a stick, or whatever it is he does?” 

 

Lup shot him a look. “You know he’s in the next room, right? Besides, you’re cool with him, I’ve seen you chat and have fun with the guy. And, I know you would feel bad if he heard you being a jerk about him.”

 

Taako sneered and then called out over his shoulder, “Hey, Barold! I’m being a jerk about you right now! Just said a bad, mean thing apparently!” Lup narrowed her eyes at him and mouthed “unbelievable,” while shaking her head. 

 

“Oh. Uuh -- umm. Okay?” Barry stammered from the other room, barely loud enough to hear. Lup pulled another face at Taako and left her vegetable-chopping station to walk back to the common room. 

 

Barry was back in the same corner of the couch with his book, just as he was before he had been interrupted by the twins climbing all over him. Lup went over and sat close, wrapping an arm around behind him to give him a quick, gentle side-hug. “He’s joking; he’s just jealous that I’ve spent so much time around you this week.”

 

Barry blushed, as usual. “Oh. I’m sorry for taking up too much of your time,” he said quietly and a little bit sadly, obviously instantly feeling guilty. 

 

Lup leaned back to look at Barry fully. “I’m in charge of my time and how I spend it, Barold. You didn’t do anything.” She got up and gave a quick scratch to the stubble on his chin. “Sorry bud, but you don’t have the kind of power over Lup Taaco to ‘take’ her time. Unfortunately, I’m only working with you because I want to,” she smiled at him, then turned to skip back to the kitchen.  

 

***

“This has been such a fun year so far,” Lup beamed at Barry with a full, deeply happy, squinty-eyed smile. They were following a trail of paw prints that they were told were quite old. The puppies regarded them as being of some great importance because of their lasting power, but really it was probably just because they happened to be going through an area where there was a dense, clay like substrate near the surface. The tracks were most likely left during a rainy season, followed up by a harsh summer that baked the clay that the prints were left in. Nevertheless, they were interested in seeing the apparently ‘very important’ site that the tracks led to. 

Barry was having a good time as well. They had gotten a lot of work done that day; they were basically fluent in the new language and had been able to teach a fair bit to the others. They spent some time gardening with Merle; the plants that he had moved from the sun room to outside earlier in the year were producing some amazing vegetables. Barry had developed a new method of preserving perishables, part heat based, part chemical, that kept them tasting a lot better than canning did. Just in case food was rough in the next cycle, he and Lup spent a couple hours using his new process on the spoils from Merle’s garden so that they could build up their stock. 

That was the only time they spent indoors that day, though. It was absolutely gorgeous outside; the temperature was in perfect tune with their bodies, the sun was bright but even directly underneath it, it wasn’t hot. There was the faintest breeze, only enough to bring in the soft scent of flowers from the surrounding fields, and the already unnaturally blue sky was even more vibrant than usual. It was the kind of weather that took over your emotions and made everything feel light and free and perfect and like the air was easier to breathe than normal. The whole crew took all of their conversations and meals out on the deck and as the day neared sundown, Lup and Barry felt like it was a perfect time to follow the trail of paw prints they had been told about. 

“Looks like we’ll be watching the sunset together, Barold,” Lup leaned over to bump shoulders with Barry as they walked. Barry was in an amazing mood and felt relaxed after their full day of work and entranced by the beautiful weather and he only blushed a little bit. 

“Heh, yeah. Should be a good one.” 

***

The prints led to yet another open field, but one that was somehow more lush than any of the others they had seen yet. The tall grass was all of a uniform height and vibrant green color and slightly wavered in the soft breeze, looking almost like the surface of a green body of water all throughout the flat landscape before the field gave way to rolling hills. There was a single, huge flowering tree in the center, straight ahead of them. The sun was setting perfectly on the opposite side of the tree, so they of course walked over to it and sat on the ground on the other side so that they had a direct view of the sunset. 

Sitting comfortably at the base of the tree, Lup and Barry watched the sun start to dip below the line of smooth, rippling hills that poured out in front of them and far into the distance. As it began to darken around them, they saw something: a faint, white glow coming from somewhere beyond the hills. They both saw it at the same time and simultaneously looked at each other. It was the light. They scrambled up to their feet, not wanting to waste any time. It looked close enough that they could probably just walk to it without needing to go back and get supplies. Couple hours out at the most. And they wanted to take advantage of it being dark and being able to track the light by its glow. So they set out. 

They laughed and joked as they walked and Lup was happy; Barry didn’t seem so nervous about the light. In fact, he didn’t seem tense at all. It was really nice to see. 

“Do you and Taako play fight like that often? Have I just not been hanging out outside of the lab enough?” 

“Well, for one, you still don’t hang outside the lab enough, in my opinion. And for two, yes, and I basically always kick his ass.”

“Well that’s funny, because it seemed like you were using me as a human shield as well as hiding under a blanket.”

“Barry,” she said with mock disappointment. “You obviously know nothing about war,” she pointed a finger into the air as if she were lecturing him. “That’s called tactics, my man. Strategy. I knew what I was doing!” 

Barry just chuckled and shook his head. Lup bounced in front of him, walking backwards for a moment as she proposed an idea.

“Okay! Twenty questions!” 

“Wait. What?” 

“Oh come on, you’ve  _ had  _ to have played twenty questions before.” 

Barry just gave her a shrug. 

“Jeeeez, okay. So, I’ll think of something, and then the first thing you ask me is ‘animal, vegetable, or mineral’ and I’ll answer. Then after that it’s yes or no questions only and you have to see if you can guess what I’m thinking of within twenty of em.” 

“I’m uh -- well…” Barry paused momentarily, thinking. Lup raised a curious eyebrow at him. “Those -- those three categories don’t even  _ begin  _ to cover things.” 

She sighed and dropped her shoulders with exaggerated exasperation. “Oh my gods, don’t go mega nerd on me, it’s just a kid’s game.” 

He smiled teasingly at her, “Then why are we playing it?” 

Lup gasped. “You are being such a punk, Barold!” She lightly pushed his shoulder and he smiled, looking at his feet with his hands in the pockets of his robe as they walked. 

Lup gave up on the idea. “Okay, okay, fine. Let’s do twenty  _ one  _ questions instead. We just take turns; I get to ask you twenty one questions about anything, and then you do me.” 

Barry put on a deliberate pondering face for a moment, holding on to his chin with one hand. “What’s the significance of there being one more question than the other game?”

“Baaarrrryyyyy,” she said with warning in her voice, like he was about to get grounded.

He dropped his hand and shrugged his shoulders, “And for that matter, what is the significance of twenty one in general.” She glared at him and he threw his hands up defensively. “I just want to know! I’m a curious guy!”

And that’s when she pounced on him -- literally pounced on him like a cat, jumping up from the ground in an agile swoop and clinging on to his back, arms around his neck. Once she gained balance with her legs wrapped around his torso, him flailing and laughing and turning red all at once, she removed one hand from around him and gave him a noogie. His body reacted violently, bursting into laughter and pushing her hand away until she partially let go and allowed herself to gently roll off of him and onto the ground. And he ran, still laughing, thinking about when he saw her and Taako rough housing and the absolute delight they got out of it, and how it was something he had never done. But that day, he was at a place where he felt more encouraged and less shy and was able to play along. She sat on the grass with her hands on the ground behind her propping herself up and she was trying to get on her feet, but was laughing too hard. She saw Barry’s red IPRE robe flowing away from her as he ran off. But then she saw it drop. And it somehow disappeared behind the top of the swell of the hill in front of them. 

And then she heard an… awful noise. 

***

When Lup got back to the Starblaster, she was walking with Merle and everyone else was already waiting outside for her. She had gotten a hold of them on her stone of farspeech, and Merle had gone out to meet her. Just in case. But it was too late. She already knew that. They had a hard time convincing her that it would be better to wait until it was light outside to go back and bury him. She insisted on sunrise, at least. She went with Magnus, Taako and Lucretia at the first sign of light the next morning, and together they found a safe path to the bottom of the cliff and they buried him. Lup was stiff and barely responsive. Taako had an arm around her at all times and joined her in her silence. 

***

After the burial, back on the Starblaster, Lup was despondent. 

“You know it wasn’t your fault, right?” Taako moved closer to where she had flopped herself face down onto their bed and he stroked her hair.

She mumbled through the pillow that she was face first in.“But, I mean, kind of—“

“No. Lulu. It was the fact that there was suddenly a cliff in the middle of a bunch of totally chill hills. A weirdo, curved cliff that was the same color as everything else. That was fucking wild, for real. When you said the cliff that he fell off of was up ahead, I couldn’t even tell it was there until we were near the edge of it. It was some freaky optical illusion bullshit.”

She was quiet and still seemed far away. Taako sighed as he continued to pet her head. 

“It wasn’t your fault, okay? It wasn’t even his terrible vision’s fault. It was a shitty cliff.”

Lup turned over and allowed her brother to hug her.

***

Magnus and Davenport went out during the daylight and very carefully traversed the landscape, hoping to find the light based on the details Lup gave them. And while they couldn’t find it during the day, they steadily made themselves as familiar as they could with the lay of the land. They found that there was only the one cliff, at least for the several hours out that they walked. Knowing the single dangerous spot to avoid, they were able to retrieve the light of creation one night. Magnus was relieved; he had been worried for the entire cycle about the fate of the puppies. They still didn’t know much about what happened when they left with the light, only that when they did, they didn’t see the plane get consumed behind them before they left -- so, there was reason to hope that with the light of creation removed from the plane, the occupants had at least a fighting chance. 

They didn’t have long to go until the end of the year, and with their science officer gone, they decided to just store the light in the ship. Maybe they would have a better chance to study it next cycle. They were just glad to have it at all. 

***

Lup felt sad and anxious, even while reminiscing and going over fond thoughts of Barry. She knew that she would be seeing him again, soon. When they regenerated she would see Taako first, but then when she turned her head just a bit, she would see Barry next. And his hair would be less haphazard and his face would be clean shaven. 

Over the course of each year, Barry’s hair grew out and became more and more messy. Sometimes, he would remember to trim it maybe once or twice over the year, but mostly he would just push it back while he eagerly worked or read. He seemed to never find time to maintain it, or he just outright forgot. It was the same with shaving; it never got to the point of him having a beard, he would just get pretty scruffy. But, Lup never thought that he looked ragged or unkempt. When he had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hand moving across the top of his head to push away his hair and later, his fingers moving to push up his glasses or to rub at his temples while he concentrated, sometimes lightly scratching at the scruff on the sides of his face, he just looked like a man with dedication and drive and momentum. Someone who spent his time as effectively and efficiently as he could. And for him, efficiency had nothing to do with appearance. In a way, that was kind of a huge factor in what made him an attractive person. 

He would be back soon, and she would once again get to see the steady progression of professional, first-day-on-the-job Barry turn into hurried, hard working, rugged Barry. The nerd who took most of his meals to the lab and ate breakfast and drank coffee like his life depended on it. The adorable nerd who she was convinced turned the brightest shade of red possible for a human to be whenever she was in the kitchen either late or early enough to catch him stumbling out of his room to get water with bed hair and bleary eyes. And most importantly, pajama pants instead of blue jeans. She was pretty sure that she was the only one of the crew who had seen him without his signature jeans. 

She did her best to focus on what was to come and tried to tear her thoughts away from missing her friend. But she couldn’t help going over a scary hypothetical in her head; what if they hadn’t been in their current situation with the current rules? How would she feel if she had just permanently lost such an important friend? It would be unbearable. But that wasn’t the case, so -- why was she torturing herself? 

She was going to see him soon. And that was an incredibly lucky thing to have: the certainty of seeing your friend again. That was a reason to be happy. 

***

The crew minus Davenport stood side by side, looking out the windows at the world below as The Hunger descended. It leaked its pillars down and released its flood of black dots that they could see moving around on the planet’s surface. Then, it recoiled and made its way towards them instead.

“That’s right, you big baddie. Foiled again!” Merle stood proudly with his hands on his hips, sneering out the window. 

They had started to feel a strange familiarity with The Hunger. More and more each year they recognized it as something with intent, with some ability to think and react to changes they made. They started to think of it as not just a terrifying phenomenon or a supernatural disaster, but as an enemy.  _ Their  _ enemy. 

“Man. Fuck this guy,” Lup spat out the words. “You know what,” and she strongly raised her hand out in front of her and flipped up her middle finger at the window, at The Hunger. 

“Hell yeah, Lup!” Taako immediately joined her. 

“Nyahhh,” Merle stuck his tongue out at it while also raising his hand and middle finger. 

“Tired of this bully,” Magnus’s voice was gruff as he followed suit.

Lucretia was silent and stoic, her eyes fixated on the scene out the window. But then, she assertively raised both of her hands to double flip off The Hunger, and her friends cheered and laughed.

Taako yelled out towards the helm up the stairs behind them, “Hey Capn’port! We’re flipping off The Hunger!” 

“Got it! Okay, wait, need both hands on the wheel for a sec -- okay -- there we go.” And after the smallest pause, he yelled loudly to them “I’m doing it too!” 

The crew laughed a tense but happy laugh. A laugh that meant that they were with their friends and that they were all going to be together, be complete, in just a handful of minutes. They were in this together.  _ This  _ is what they were doing. And they would do it as much as they had to. 

 

Even if they could do nothing else, they at least weren’t going to make things easy for the fucker. 


	8. Fungston

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cycle Eight

 

As had become the custom for anyone who died in the previous cycle, the crew immediately encircled Barry and welcomed him back after regeneration. Lup thought that she could see in his face that he was overwhelmed with everyone surrounding him. Lucretia put a hand on his shoulder, Merle hugged his legs from the side, Magnus heartily patted him on the back to the point of his glasses almost being knocked off. Taako simply gave him a nod and said, “‘sup.”  

Lup hung back for a moment as everyone else did their thing, leaning against the wall behind them with her arms crossed and a casual smile. As the crew dispersed and Barry looked like he could breathe again, she strode up behind him and mussed his hair with a very short, light touch -- guy looked like he’d had enough physical affection to last him the cycle. 

“Lup…”

“Don’t do that again, nerd,” her voice was teasing him, but her smile and her eyes were sincere with traces of heaviness and relief. 

“I’m sorry…”

“Pfft, there’s nothing to be sorry about Barry; you  _ died _ . That’s not something you apologize for. I won’t allow it.” She pulled together a more Lup-like smile for him. “C’mon, dying is hungry work. Let’s go see what Taako has planned for your resurrection party.” 

 

***

 

As Davenport began their descent and circled the planet, looking for a place for them to land, the view outside was -- strange. They saw wide, circular brownish and white and sometimes rust red pillows all touching at the edges, almost interlocked. The air above the ground was softly illuminated, brighter in some areas than others. Other areas were oppressed by a heavy dust or fog, causing the glowing light around the surface to shatter and soften, and it was faintly raining almost everywhere. They grew concerned as they circled and saw spaces in the quilt-like surface... and in those spaces there was what looked like another ground underneath, and in there, there were  _ things --  _ tall and pale and long, sluggishly moving around. 

 

They finally came across a place to land; a place where the ground was suddenly lower and green and not the glowing, rippling smooth surface of the rest of the planet. They could see the signs of a small civilization and Davenport expertly brought the ship down nearby. As soon as they were on the ground, they saw the reality of what they had been looking at from above -- the pillowy surface hid a mass of stalks that were emanating an even stronger glow than what was able to be seen from above. And it became apparent that what they thought was fog was actually hazy, slowly floating clouds of spores. 

It seemed impossible for mushrooms to be so large, though there had been many impossible things that they had seen so far. Nevertheless, it was still a startling sight. In the clearing where they had landed, the spores seemed to be barely present, so it was easy to come to the assumption that a civilization could only survive where the mushrooms weren’t; meaning the spores were probably not -- great for you. They were especially grateful for their breathing apparati; typically, only used as a safety measure when they hadn’t yet tested the air quality of a new planet. But, they had a feeling that they might be wearing them for most of their time there. 

 

***

The crew was readily accepted by the small village of gnomes, halflings, and dwarves. Merle had especially caught their attention with his proselytizing, spreading the word of Pan. Lup was almost suspicious at first; Merle was being especially sweet. But -- she  _ had  _ been starting to notice more sincerity in Merle. When he wasn’t being a space cadet or oversharing or just being generally weird and awkward (but somehow  _ owning  _ those vibes at the same time) he would say something profound or meaningful or even just plain nice. He would often come out of nowhere with compliments or advice, and sometimes that advice was even kind of okay. Taako though -- Taako seemed annoyed. 

 

“What even is your endgame here? Is getting everyone all hopped up on Pan really the best use of your time?” 

 

“I think it’s good for them! Why not give them some hope, even if it’s just for a little while? Besides, you guys never listen to me talk about Pan.” 

 

“Oooh, so that’s what this is about; Merle wants a captive audience,” Taako scoffed.

 

“No! If they hadn’t liked it, I wouldn’t have talked to them about Pan, either. But they do like it and it’s making them happy! They want to build a church, and I’m going to help, and I  _ do  _ think it’s the best use of my time.” 

 

“Alright, alright,” Taako said flippantly. “You do you, old man.” 

 

“Oh, I will!” and with that, Merle shuffled off, grabbing his mask to leave the Starblaster and return to his growing fan-base. 

 

As Merle walked out, Magnus rushed in, nearly knocking him over. Out of breath and gasping, he held up two long metal wands, one in each hand, with tubes running from the bottoms to a couple of tanks on his back, each wand topped with a sort of funnel.

 

“They let me have two flamethrowers!” and through his panting, he let out a gleeful, but hearty, laugh. 

 

***

 

Though the world they found themselves in was particularly dangerous, they at least had a good understanding of the danger, how to avoid it, the support of a community behind them, and a group of locals willing to join the search party. It was a good situation that would help them to really focus on getting the light of creation that year. Magnus felt particularly motivated, already hellbent on protecting the world and the people that they had found in it. After deciding who would go on the hunt for the light and who would stay, the crew spent one last night in Fungston before splitting up. The townsfolk there lived in large, communal homes containing multiple families each, and it was in one of those homes that they had been invited to dinner. With the crew sharing resources, they were able to make a substantial meal for themselves and for the team that was meant to join them on their expedition in the morning. 

 

Lucretia had been fascinated with the mushrooms since the moment they landed and spent a rare day of leisure sketching them. Even with a fairly large area that the townsfolk had kept clear of fungi by way of burn teams that set out each night to fight the encroaching threat, the towering mushrooms were plainly visible from the relative safety of the town. That night, milling about the house while Taako and the favorite gnomish chef in Fungston worked in the kitchen, Lucretia saw that they had a large hallway filled with art in the home. Immediately drawn to it, she slowly poured over each piece as she walked down the hall. It was lined with ancient parchments of drawings that used a metallic powder in their highlights, breathtaking and elaborately detailed paintings, and vases with vivid scenery painted on or etched into them and stained with some sort of ink. But even more than the beauty of the art, Lucretia was struck by something else -- a majority of the pieces depicted something that didn’t exist on the planet: trees. Some of the pieces showed a mix of fungi and trees, one of which depicted blackened and crumbling trees with a neat line of mushrooms across the length of the background. And the art that looked particularly old portrayed full, lush forests, with no signs of fungi at all. 

 

A halfling resident of the household found Lucretia in the hall and walked over to her, slowly and carefully making her way with the guidance of her cane. 

 

“Appreciating the art? We’re very proud of this collection -- this is where we as a town protect the only remaining relics of our past.” 

 

“Oh, yes, it’s all very beautiful. I did want to ask, though; these pieces here at the end, what are these based off of?”

 

“Ah, yes,” the elderly halfling clasped the top of her cane with both hands and spoke with reverence. “Those pieces are older than any of us here. But, we have these and we have stories that have been handed down that tell us how different this world once was. The forests were soft, green and gold, and allowed for the sun to pour into them and mottle the ground with daylight. Everything could be touched, and the air was clear and light and fresh. And the forests were still and silent, and they were friendly. They didn’t threaten to swallow you up. Not everyone is convinced that any of that was real, though. We all have our fantasies of how things could be different. These could have just been the fantasies of our ancestors.” 

 

Lucretia nodded and thanked the halfling, then turned to regard the pictures with a newfound heaviness in her heart. 

 

***

 

“Why wouldn’t there still be trees too, though?” 

 

Back in the common room on the Starblaster, Lucretia had filled in the crew on the conversation she had earlier, and Magnus was curious about the whole thing and asking questions.

 

“Mycelium can infect tree roots,” Barry answered from the couch, absent-mindedly chewing on the end of his pencil and not looking up from his notes. Even when he was outside of the lab, he usually found some way of doing work or research. 

 

“Basically interferes with the tree’s ability to absorb water or nutrients and feeds off of it.” He lowered the pencil from his mouth and looked up and across the room towards the window where the bioluminescence of the towering mushrooms could be seen glowing in the dark. “Probably a very strong and widespread rhizomorph system that choked out all the trees. Which...”

 

Lup perked up the sound that she had learned was the telltale tone of Barry coming to a conclusion.  

 

“Which?” 

 

“Kind of scary but -- that could technically be one single mushroom out there, all originating from a solitary spore, connected by the same filaments underground and sending up multiple stalks as it spreads.” 

 

“Kinda scary? That’s terrifying.” Magnus turned to cautiously look out the window. 

 

“Yeah. Not that things look hopeful here anyways, but that would just make it all the harder to effectively fight it back. Any progress wouldn’t really be removing anything, it would only be causing small injuries to the largest life form on the planet.” 

 

Barry went back to chewing on his pencil and poring over his notes, stopping to make small edits here and there. He didn’t notice that everyone went silent.

 

“Kinda fucking dark, dontchya think Barold?” Taako had an eyebrow raised at Barry.

 

Barry looked up from his notes, surprised. 

 

“Oh uh, y-yeah. I guess. I mean, it’s just one possibility. I didn’t mean -- it’s just…” and he trailed off, looking apologetic. 

 

Lup, sitting on the opposite side of the couch from Barry, came to his defense. “It’s just a sciency answer from our science officer. Truth can be scary. Barold’s not being insensitive, he’s just used to it.” She shot Barry an understanding smile, and he gave her a grateful look. Taako rolled his eyes. Davenport took control of the conversation. 

 

“Either way, it’s only an observation and shouldn’t affect our goal here. Priority is the light.”

 

Magnus nodded emphatically. “We’ve got to do our part to protect them. No matter what is going to happen after we leave.” 

  
  


***

 

They had spent a month straight flying south, stopping, searching for any sort of indication of the light, triangulating, more searching; all while Barry and Lup did their best to map an un-mapped world. The team that they had brought with them was starting to worry about their home and how it was doing without them. 

 

The team from Fungston, Magnus, and Lup had been lowered into the fungal forest, and were setting up camp so that they could get a good two days search in before returning to the Starblaster for their next hop. Magnus was in his tent when he absentmindedly removed his mask. The tents weren’t secure enough to keep out all of the spores and they had developed a method of eating via a tube that ran underneath their masks, connected to a large flask of nutritional slurry that Barry and Taako had developed before their journey. But, Magnus basically  _ always had  _ pockets full of hard candy. They were just kind of everywhere, permeated throughout all of his belongings. And he had developed the bad habit of eating a couple before bed. And that habit took over in his sleepy and overworked state. When it was obvious that he wasn’t doing well, they got back on board as soon as Davenport found a place with a gap between the mushroom tops so that the team could get pulled back up to the ship. They got Magnus into bed with a healing potion in him, and Lup did whatever she could with the ingredients that they had to put together something with at least a mild amount of natural antitoxin elements. 

 

After fighting through days of illness, slowed movement, and heavy respiratory issues, he had seemed to be getting better and his friends were hopeful. But, the next morning when they were outfitting the ground team to prepare for another drop to the surface, Magnus hadn’t come out to their morning meeting yet. Davenport sent Barry to get him. 

 

Barry entered Magnus’s room after knocking on his door didn’t work. His room had a sort of organized messiness going on in it and it was obvious that the first and only things he did when going into his room at the end of the day was to remove his clothes and fall into bed. Barry stopped short and smiled at the little pile of drawings on his nightstand that Magnus had acquired from the children in Fungston. That guy would just instantly turn into the biggest goofball around dogs or kids, and it was endearing. 

 

But then Barry’s smile dropped and he felt a cold, full body chill. Magnus was in his bed, laying on his side facing away from Barry, but Barry didn’t like the look of his posture -- he was slumped over in a way that didn’t look like he was just sleeping. Barry called his name a few more times, though. He didn’t want to go around and look at his face, he didn’t want to grab at him and touch him for a pulse. He was certain that he was dead and he didn’t want to see his friend’s lifeless face or touch his dead body. But he knew he had to check his pulse, just in case there was anything to be done. When Barry went to reach over from behind him and pick up his wrist, he recoiled from the cold, clammy feeling and at how Magnus’s arm was stiff in an unnatural way. 

 

Barry stood there for a moment, both of his hands over his face, covering his mouth and eyes as small tears started to form and he worked to hold them back. 

 

He took in a deep breath and held it for a second, put his hands down and exhaled, straightened his back and turned out of the room to tell the others what happened. 

  
  


***

 

The crew of the Starblaster had to continue their search without Magnus. Staying on their course heading south, they found another clearing with another small civilization and Davenport took the ship down. The town was already gathering outside before they had fully landed. Luckily, they were just as friendly as the citizens of Fungston and were happy to talk them and let them bury Magnus in their own graveyard. 

 

The burn team was elated to meet people outside of their own town -- traveling as far as they had with the crew was something that had been impossible for them for their whole lives. They shared information and tactics with each other, swapped recipes and stories, and bonded over talking about the ways that their settlements and cultures were both incredibly different and surprisingly similar. There was something about constantly struggling against a slowly encroaching threat that made the people of that world incredibly bonded with each other and also open and accepting of everyone else There was no room for hate or friction when every single day took the team effort of an entire town for them to be able to see the end of that day. The crew of the Starblaster saw themselves reflected in the people of that world. 

 

After burying Magnus, they returned from the outskirts to find that the townsfolk had scraped together what they could to have a dinner ready for all of them to share with the grieving crew. It was touching and they were grateful; despite how intense and strange the planet was, they counted themselves lucky to have been accepted by its people.

After they showed their appreciation by giving the town the few items and supplies that they could spare, they said goodbye and continued south. It wasn’t much longer before they finally came across something — different. 

 

The size of the mushrooms changed. They had been relatively uniform across the planet, but there was a circle forming where they started to steadily grow larger. Barry speculated that maybe the center of the circle was the original site of growth; the place where that initial, fateful spore had settled and spread. It was either that, or the light; they all hoped it was finally going to be the light. They found a space that was large enough for the Starblaster to land and they decided to proceed towards the center of the circle on foot. As they marched through the never ending stalks, they noticed that the tall, pale mushroom like beings that they had seen walking with an eerie, dreamlike slowness through the underside of the dusty mushroom ceiling, were just — not around. They had seen at least some every time they had landed before. But, it was just empty and deathly quiet and as they walked, they watched the mushroom forest ceiling above them slowly rise as the fungi grew ever larger. 

 

And then there was a clearing. With no stalks and no roof. But the ground was entirely covered with hundreds of the tall, pale mushroom creatures which were also arranged in a circle within a circle within a circle; this time growing smaller as it advanced towards the center. They stood on the edge between where the forest ended and the creatures began and regarded the scene, deeply disturbed. All of the creatures were kneeling or in the process of bowing down to the ground. And the bio-luminescent glow of them was much brighter than anything they had seen so far, and it only intensified further into the crowd of beings and gained more varieties of color. It grew brighter and brighter until it was almost blinding. Most upsetting about the scene in front of them was that the fungal life forms that they had seen so many of before, moving like ghosts through the hazy, spore drenched forest, none of them were… moving. There was such an intense stillness and quietness surrounding them that every single member of the search crew was immediately struck with a sense of foreboding. As they pushed forward and drew close to the first line of prostate mushroom creatures, the next distressing thing they noticed about them was that they were dry and had begun to shrivel. For the first time, they saw them up close and were able to observe the only features on their faces; long, horizontal, solid grey eyes. And they saw that their eyes were fixed, and a bit sunken in. 

 

Lup was the only one to say anything before they continued walking. 

 

“Soooo, this is a fucking horror show.” 

 

Barry’s eyes were wide, his eyebrows scrunched together and angled upward in a look of sympathy and worry. Lucretia, while continuing to walk, had started to write even more furiously than usual in one of her journals.  

 

They were all silent as they continued on, single file through the crowd of once living things. They watched as the creatures progressively became more shriveled and desiccated, bowing further onto the ground until their faces were in the dirt. But they were still glowing brighter and brighter and with an increasingly more impressive spectrum of colors. And there at the center was the brightest light of all; the familiar, shockingly bright light that didn’t hurt to look directly at, that actually felt -- amazing to look at. 

 

They had succeeded in their mission, but were unable to muster up the desire to celebrate. 

  
  


***

  
  


What a fucking week. 

 

Aboard the Starblaster and back in Fungston, Barry was trying to get his mind off of the shock of finding Magnus dead and off of the terrifying spectacle around the light by getting to work. He got labels and petri dishes and extra specimen jars ready, preparing to divide his small samples even smaller so that he could run a series of tests. Then a thought occurred to him; the mushroom creatures had felt such a strong draw to the light, so much so that they just gave up, physically. Overriding the self preservation of a living thing is a pretty impressive feat. What if there was something deeper than it just being -- attractive. What if it could even have an impact on a cellular level?  A leap, but something worth checking out. During their trip, he had worked through the feelings of distress enough to gather a few samples from the mushroom creatures. He collected only from the flakes and chunks that had fallen off of them and onto the ground; it felt wrong to him to remove anything from the creatures themselves. 

 

Questions and guesses and ideas ran through his head and he hurried to his feet, grabbing at supplies and setting up the work space with his usual brand of organized chaos. Lup, leaning up against the door frame behind him, only watched him for a minute -- or two, before making herself known. 

 

“Need a hand, Bear?” He turned around and looked like he had been startled out of a trance. She felt worried for him once again; it had been a shit week. And she knew he had some issues with the light. Having it on the ship after seeing a circle of hundreds of beings dead around it probably didn’t make those issues any better. 

 

“Uh, y-yeah actually, that would be great, Lup.” 

 

“Sweet!” She bounced into the lab and stood next to him. “What are we doing, Barold?”

 

“So, Umm -- I was going to get some of these samples under a microscope I -- have no reason for thinking this really, but I’m curious if there would be any sort of cellular reaction between something that was attracted to the light and the...” he paused and looked over to the opposite corner of the lab. Lup turned her head and saw the faintly glowing box in the corner where he had stored and covered up the light. 

 

She turned back to him, smiling, wondering how she could distract him from his obvious worries. At least work would be distracting. 

 

“Hell yeah, that sounds like the start of a good time, let’s get truckin’.” 

 

“Great! Uh, hmm. I’m going to shave off a few sample pieces for the microscope, would it be okay to, uh -- I guess first, I have some fresh slides over there and I can hand you the samples as I cut them if you want to prep a couple wet mounts for me?”

 

Lup snorted.

 

Barry’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What?” 

 

“It’s just… hah, hooo boy, just…” and she dissolved into giggles, mostly laughing at herself for finding that particular thing funny. Barry continued to stare at her, perplexed. She covered her mouth and quietly repeated “ _ wet mount _ ,” between suppressed laughs. 

 

Barry went immediately from confusion to dropping his head and chuckling, saying  “Oh my gods,” under his breath. 

 

Lup continued to laugh as Barry looked down at the floor and laughed a little bit too, raising his hand to cover part of his face. At seeing his face and watching him give in to laughter while trying to hide it behind his hand, Lup laughed even more until she was fully cracking up. And Barry busted up just from her laughter, and he laughed fully and loudly, in a way that made his shoulders bounce and made him have to lift his other hand to the other side of his face, laughing into his hands and hiding his eyes. It was a rare reaction to get from Barry. 

 

He lowered his hands and Lup could see that he was blushing,but also grinning ear to ear. 

 

“That’s -” Barry gasped, still chuckling a bit, “that’s not funny, Lup.”

 

“Then why are you laughing, nerd!?” And she punched his shoulder. 

 

*** 

 

After working closely with Barry on observing and recording what they saw under the microscope while the light was in the room with them, Lup brought the light to Taako so that he could finish his decoy. He was set up in a work room in the village, where he had been carefully assembling his fake light using bits of luminescent mushroom stalk and whatever else he could find. 

 

“How was your vacation with your boyfriend?”

 

She looked at him, perplexed. 

 

“Baaarrryyy?” he drew out the name with an upward inflection while leaning over close to her and smiling like a goof. 

 

“Excuse me?” 

 

“Well, you missed out on a lot of quality twin time when you so eagerly volunteered to go off with him.” 

 

She huffed, “it wasn’t just with him. And, besides,” she flicked her fingers on both hands, igniting two small, short bursts of fire “built in flamethrowers. I’ve also learned a lot of good shit lately that I knew would be helpful to  _ all  _ of them.” 

 

“Shit you learned from -- hmmm, Baaaaaarrrrryyyy?” he said, mocking her with a flirtatious voice.

 

She put her hands on her hips and gave him a judging look. But, then her expression gave way to one of empathy.  

 

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around enough lately.” 

 

Taako immediately felt awful.

 

“Oh no, Lulu. I’m sorry, I’m being a dick,” he rested his elbow on the work table in front of him and let his chin drop onto his upturned palm, looking apologetic and thoughtful all at once. “I don’t know, I’m just having fun teasing you about whatever it is that’s going on with Barold.” 

 

Lup raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“Come on. You spend so much time with him. Alone,” he raised the back of his hand to his forehead, “in the lab. Doing… science,” and he sighed and fake-fainted, slumping into his chair. 

 

“Pfft, he’s just been teaching me a lot, and it’s useful stuff. And I know that like, none of this -- whole life that we have now is normal, but we are  _ all  _ still working. And we’re all still co-workers in a way. Not with the job that we thought we had, but,” she sighed frustrated, “but with this job that we have now. We’re all friends now as well, sure. I mean, it would kind of suck if we weren’t after eight fuckin’ years. And Barry and I have become pretty good friends. But he’s also still my colleague with the most to teach and who has the most stuff that needs to be helped with. What am I supposed to do? Learn how to punch harder with Magnus? Or how to fuck up healing with Merle?”

 

Taako waved both of his hands in front of him, giving up. “You’re right. I’m being a jerk because I miss you. But that’s just me being selfish, and also bored. Because what am I supposed to do, either? Punch hard with Magnus or fuck up with Merle? I’ve got the same sort of problem, here.”

 

“Oh.” Lup was disappointed in herself that she hadn’t already made that connection. “I mean, you know that you can come work with us? Literally whenever? If you wanted to come sit with us in the lab the next time Barry goes over some of his old planar research records to see if we ca--”

  
“Oh my  _ gods _ , no, that would bore me to  _ death.” _

 

Lup just looked at him, brow furrowed as she crossed her arms. 

 

Taako exhaled, defeated by himself. “Okay, yeah I get it. I am just not into what you all are doing. I  _ know  _ I’m not being abandoned or neglected and I’m sorry for being a brat.”  

 

Lup smiled; genuinely at first, but it slowly turned to mischievous. She rushed him and got him in a headlock. 

 

“Don’t worry, I’ll make more time for you since you loooooooove me so much.” 

 

Taako laughed and struggled to push away her other hand before she could give him a noogie.

 

“Ew, no, I hate you and I’ll hate you more if you ruin my hair! You’re my least favorite sister!”

  
  


***

 

No one wanted to say it -- but every single one of them felt it. 

 

A strange pull whenever they had the light in the ship. Sometimes it would wake them at night with a start, because they thought they heard a voice. And immediately upon waking, their first thought was that  _ it was there it was so close they could go look at it right now, they would be alone, just look at it, just for a bit, what was wrong with that? _

And every single one of them had a strong feeling of being certain --  _ certain --  _ that they were the only one affected in that way. That it was calling out specifically to them. 

But every single one of them knew that they were strong enough to resist whatever it was. Not strong enough to be entirely unaffected or unbothered by it, but strong enough for it to not be a problem. Every single one of them except for Barry. 

So none of them said anything to the others. Sure, they had all mentioned that the light was in general -- weird, and that there was an attractive nature to it. But beyond that -- waking in a sweat, feeling sure that there was a tiny voice developing whenever it was in the ship with them for a longer period of time. Surely no one else was experiencing that. But, what would be the point in saying anything about it? It would just be… alarming. 

They knew they would say something if it got worse, of course. But it was manageable for the time being. And on top of that, there was a little feeling in them that said  _ this is our secret, this bliss, this power, it is just for you and I.  _

Lup of course knew that Barry was feeling a strange affect from the light, enough to be fairly stressed. But that only gave her more reason not to mention her own experience with it -- she didn’t want to scare him even more. 

But, she had misinterpreted a key fact; his fear was not about its strange qualities or pull. It was the feeling that it was interested in only him. Which, she couldn’t have known because — she felt the same way. That it was only her.  

He didn’t want to be the one who let everyone down, the one who screwed up. The weak link in their tiny, desperate chain. 

He would be damned if he ever screwed up anything for any of them. 

 

***

 

As that time finally came and the silver ship circled around the slowly falling, thick columns of black, liquid ash and then sped away, Merle stayed behind with his congregation. He held their rapt attention, even while the screeching and banging sounds of an apocalyptic force fell down all around their tiny chapel. 

 

He delivered a sermon that perfectly reflected that exact moment each year when their ship would escape The Hunger and they would burst into another planar system, not knowing what would be waiting for them there. 

  
  


“...We do not know, in our lives, if we’re going to head into darkness or light. That’s what faith is all about.” 


	9. Barry felt it first.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year nine.

 

A ninth year. By the end of it, it would be one hundred and six months longer than their mission was supposed to be. Fifty three times longer than their mission was supposed to be. And nowhere to go back to, and nowhere that they could stay for long, so  -- would it ever really end? How many more months and years were ahead of them? Or had time and place become a moot point. 

They were still learning more every year, but what did that even mean? Were they going to get to some sort of answer eventually, or were they simply becoming more familiar with what would be their reality for the rest of their lives, their unending lives, at least until The Hunger overtook all of existence. Or maybe there was no end. Maybe there were infinite planar systems, more than a mind had the capability to comprehend, and unless there was eventually a cycle where they weren’t able to escape, they would be the first beings to ever experience infinity -- them and The Hunger. The Hunger and them. Hunted for eternity. 

 

Lucretia thought that it was careless for Merle to have stayed behind in Fungston. Afterall, they didn’t know whether someone would regenerate on the ship if they didn’t die either before or during their takeoff. They knew that someone killed by The Hunger, like Magnus was their first year, would be back with them at regeneration. But, they had the light last time, and Merle didn’t  _ actually  _ die. She was relieved that he was there, but she was disappointed that he had made such a dangerous assumption. They weren’t living a life that had room for unnecessary risks. Even if they were immortal, in a way. 

 

Their new planet was underwhelming but pretty, and seemed to have no real signs of immediate danger. Their first day there, Lucretia walked with Magnus and Merle around the perimeter of the clearing they had landed in and wrote her observations of their new home for the year. The sky was pale yellow and cloudless, the single sun was small and pure white, and they were surrounded by forest; but it was a quiet forest. They only saw small life forms -- bugs, birds, the occasional lizard skittering up a tree away from them, the sound of frogs in the distance. Lucretia wrote while Magnus judged the safety of their surroundings and Merle hummed to himself and enjoyed their walk. When they felt safe enough to travel a little ways into the forest, they saw what looked like the remnants of stone walls; crumbling bases barely visible through the vines of ivy and carpets of moss that were slowly swallowing them, making them one with the greenery of the forest. Taking the last, tiny pieces of whatever civilization was once there and absorbing it back into nature. 

 

That evening, towards the end of her shift watching for the light, Lucretia saw its slow approach as it abruptly blinked into view from out of the pure blackness and fell towards the world. It approached at a dramatic angle and Lucretia signaled Davenport in time for him to be able to watch the rest of its descent as he took them up and towards the light. He followed it closely until it sunk into the forest, and soon after found another clearing for them to land. The next morning Lucretia, Davenport, and Magnus made their way out to where their best estimate was of the landing site. And they found the light after only a couple hours of searching. They returned and the crew was elated; with its recovery so soon after their arrival, a huge weight was lifted from them for the rest of the year. They all mused over the possibilities the year would bring them; the things that they could focus on, the training and honing and learning or even just free time they could indulge in. 

 

Barry’s feelings were different, though. The success that everyone else was excited for meant that a good portion of his year was going to be with the light and studying the light -- in the same room with the light, alone with the light. He found himself feeling guilty when he started to wish that they hadn’t found it so early. He wondered if he could ask to take that year off from it, to put it in storage somewhere and to just have it be enough that they recovered it, that The Hunger wouldn’t take that plane. But he knew that he would be letting everyone down if he didn’t jump at the opportunity to have so much time to study and experiment with it, to find maybe some small semblance of an answer or solution or just… anything. Everyone was expecting that from him, counting on it. That was his role in everything, and he knew how selfish he was being by not wanting to fulfill the duties of that role. 

  
  


***

 

“Baaaarrryyy.” 

 

Taako was growing bored and had started making up different little sing-song ways to try and find Barry. It was also a way to simultaneously tease him because Taako was a multitasker, for sure. 

 

“Barold? Of the Jeans of Blue? Of House Blue Jeans? Son of Barry, JeansBlue, the BlueJeansman?” As a last resort, and also because he just thought of it and knew it would be hilarious, he took his best shot at a yodel.

 

“Bluuuuuuuue Jeaaaaaaans!” 

 

Turned out his best was not very good, but he was highly entertained by himself anyways. 

 

Earlier that day, in the late afternoon only a few hours after the recovery of the light, Taako and Lup were out about a mile from the Starblaster, collecting samples of various plants and soil. They were going to have so much time to garden and forage and to all-around bolster their supplies and everyone was feeling hopeful. Taako was getting bored and felt like they had enough work done for the day and enough samples to keep Barry busy for a while, but Lup was not ready to quit. She was too excited over different ideas she had about the unique local flora and kept coming up with hypotheses to bring back to Barry before things had even been tested. It was obvious to Taako that Barry was having a pretty big influence on her. She had always been smart, brilliant even, and talented, of course. But, she had always done everything, like himself, with ease and style and without breaking a sweat. Even in their scrappier, dirtier, tougher days, they still always looked cool as hell and had attitudes to match. But there she was, on her knees, digging her fingers into dirt and decaying plant matter to gather samples for the science nerd in his lab. Lup leaned back to look at a small tangle of wispy, dirt-caked roots that she had pulled out from the ground. Taako shuddered at the sight of dirt under her fingernails. Not that he would ever begrudge her anything she wanted to do, ever, and of course they weren’t exactly the same and they didn’t have all the same interests. That would be boring. But this, it was just so -- different than usual.  

“If you’re that bored, why don’t you take what we have so far back to Barry so he can get started on those? I’ll be back in soon; I want to get a few more things from this spot because I got a couple ideas…” and she trailed off, distracted by her own thoughts again. 

 

Taako rolled his eyes, “Fiiiiiine,” he conceded as he hoisted the bag of filled sample containers over his shoulder and started to walk away, flipping his hair as he did. He paused and turned heel to look back at Lup; they hadn’t encountered anything dangerous yet in their couple of days there, and Magnus was well within earshot. But losing her once was enough for him to never really be able to feel fully at ease again. He just had to look and make sure she was still there after he had turned around.

 

***

 

Taako ended up drawing Lucretia’s attention with his yodeling instead of finding Barry. She had taken a break from going over notes with Davenport about what everyone was working on that day and planning their debriefing session for the evening. Leaning against a counter in the kitchen, letting her tea go cold while she was engrossed with looking over a past journal, she looked up from the pages for the first time in half an hour when she heard Taako yodeling. She laughed to herself; she was forever charmed and entertained by the energy and loudness of the twins. It was something she sometimes envied. But, that feeling would only last for a second before she remembered that that personality wasn’t for her and that she liked how she was; how Barry and Davenport were as well. But, it was something that was a good look on other people, and Taako and Lup definitely were those people. She was glad to have them, and often felt a warm feeling every time she remembered that they were  _ there _ and existing, and how glad she was that they made it onto their team and weren’t left behind. There’s a god out there somewhere whose entire job it is is to protect those twins, she jokingly thought to herself. They were  _ all  _ there and safe, of course, but she had a feeling that those two would be protected and untouchable entities for long after their time together on the Starblaster; if that time ever ended. 

 

When Taako finally found Barry, he was in his room studying something at his desk with headphones on. Taako came up behind him and lifted the headphones off of his ears, scaring the absolute hell out of Barry who had been deep in thought.

 

“Whatchya listening to, Bear Bear? Science lectures on tape?”

 

“Oh, geez Taako, d-damn you scared m--”

 

“Got these for ya,” Taako slung the bag off his shoulder and dropped it onto the lab counter; Barry could hear the sample containers clanking against each other inside. 

 

“H-hey, try to be careful with those?” 

 

“Yeah, I’ll do that next time I drop off a bunch of containers in a bag to you, so like, hopefully never.” Taako waved his hand in a dismissive circle and walked off, pausing to say over his shoulder, “Oh yeah, and thanks for turning my sister into a nerd. She’s out there ruining her nails in the dirt for you. Hope you appreciate iiiiiiiit,” and he was out the door. 

 

Not even a full minute later, he poked his head back in.

 

“Actually, Barold. Why are you in here anyways? You’re always playing in the mud with Lup. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you have her take samples on her own.”

 

“Oh uh, I didn’t mean to make her, or anything. I just wasn’t feeling too great today. I, uh --  didn’t sleep well. But she was excited to get to work. I hope she’s not working too hard.” Barry looked concerned and nervous about Taako possibly being irritated with him. He rubbed the back of his neck and continued, “Actually, I could probably get myself together enough to get out there,” and he started to lift himself out of his chair when Taako walked over and stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. 

 

“I was just curious. You’re allowed to take a day off, my man.” 

 

Barry let himself fully sit back into his chair and lightly sighed, looking down and not making eye contact with Taako.

 

Taako looked at him with his hands on his hips and tsked before sitting down in the upholstered bedroom chair opposite Barry. 

 

“Hey. Barold. Talk to me. Tell Taako what’s up.”

 

“Thanks Taako, but I don’t want to burden you or anything.” 

 

“Barry. Eyes up here,” Taako said, leaning over and pointing to his face, and Barry raised his head to look at him. “Something’s obviously going on with you, and I’m offering to talk about it; you’re not going to get that offer every day so you better take me up on it.” He leaned back into his chair and laced his fingers together, elbows on the arms of the chair, signaling to Barry with his posture that he was expecting him to start talking.

 

“I -- damn, I uh…” Barry took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Last year really sucked, Taako, and I’m not used to dealing with any of the kind of stuff that we’ve been dealing with. It’s a whole lot, and I know it’s a lot for everyone else, too. I just worry that maybe I’m too soft and being affected by all of this way more than anyone else, and I don’t want to be dead weight, or to start getting in the way, or --” Taako cut him off.

 

“Barry, we’re all having a hard time. But, we’re all very different people, dealing with things in very different ways. Some of us just don’t wear our hearts on our sleeves. You’re not soft; you’re just not hiding anything. You’re going to be fine. You got this, trust.” 

 

Taako got up before Barry had time to even think of a response. “Go easy on yourself, my man,” and he left Barry alone once again. 

***

When Lup and Barry observed the slides that they had made with samples from the mushroom creatures in the previous year, they had actually found something -- it was small, but it was something. When the light was taken out of the room by Lup and given to Taako in the village, there was an almost imperceptible movement of cells to one side of the slide, towards the direction of the light. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make Barry stiffen and his eyes widen. And that was one of the images that became exaggerated and frightening and played on repeat in his dreams that night...

With his eye peering into the microscope, he saw cells growing larger, bubbling and frothing, flashing with all of the colors that the dead mushroom creatures were glowing with when they found them. They grew and bubbled until they were pushing the glass cover slip off of the slide. And all at once, the pile of enlarged and grotesque cells moved as a unit to one side, and when he took his eye off of the microscope, the light was there in the room with him, and the room was pitch dark otherwise, and he was alone and he had the absolutely sure feeling that he was alone, completely alone in the entire ship, and that there would be no lights on, no lights that could even be turned on, there was only _the_ _light_. He felt himself being pulled to his knees, and his body desperately fought against it, but his knees only became weaker until he was thrown down, bowing before the light, his eyes filling with tears because he knew that he would never be able to move from that spot again and he could vividly see his future laid out in front of him; a future of rapidly withering away and never moving again. His lips were drawn tight and he could feel that there was no voice in his throat, but it didn’t matter anyways -- everyone was gone. It was only him and the light, the light and him and everything else that there ever was or would be, wasn’t. All that would exist would be him and the light, wanting desperately to touch it, to own it, but being unable to move towards it, to move at all. And somehow through the terror, or maybe alongside it, packaged with it, there was the feeling of bliss and of complete surrender, the feeling of a desire both unfulfilled but so close _so close, and looking at it would never be enough but it was still more wonderful than anything anyone had ever experienced up until then._

Barry snapped awake, sweating and gasping, his jaw sore. He felt like he had been holding his breath and clenching his teeth for the entire nightmare. He was relieved to be awake, but was shaken and overwhelmed. He tried taking measured, rhythmic, deep breaths but he fell apart despite his best efforts. He sat up and moved to the edge of his bed and flipped on the side-table light, trying to get up so that he could walk it off, maybe go to the kitchen for water, but his legs wouldn’t let him. Without realizing it, he started sobbing and his face was already being covered by his hands. His mind was spinning its wheels hard; he had made little to no progress, which meant he  _ needed _ to do so much more work, and that meant being near that  _ thing _ and he didn’t know what the long term effects of being around it might be, and he didn’t know how susceptible he was to those effects. What if he was destroyed or rendered useless by it before he could actually do anything useful with it. He wanted so badly to have that year away from it entirely, but that was selfish and unprofessional and would only make him of no use to anyone. But, he was always the one who ended up spending the most time with it and he was certain that no one else had the same fears and that no one else was in danger of falling prey to it like he was. How could he possibly survive it long enough to make things any better? 

He  _ had  _ to make things better, he  _ had  _ to help them, he  _ had  _ to figure something out eventually, he just needed to keep trying. 

While Barry was allowing himself to dissolve into the feeling of hopelessness, sitting on the edge of his bed, Lup was leaving her room to go stargazing on the deck as she often did. She had to pass by Barry’s door to exit the hallway, and where everything was normally silent and dark, she heard heavy breathing and sniffling and saw a faint light coming from the space under his door. She paused just outside -- he was definitely crying. She hesitated, wondering whether it would be worse to leave him be, uncomforted and alone, or to inflict the embarrassment that he would surely feel if she found him crying. Hearing another despairing sob escape him, she felt an immediate pang in her heart and she decided to softly knock. 

 

“Barry?” 

 

Caught off guard and realizing with dismay that he had been discovered, and of course by Lup out of everyone, he felt his breath catch in his throat. 

 

Softly, she asked, “Can I come in?” 

 

He inhaled deliberately and slowly, trying to find his voice. 

 

“Uh -- I-I’m okay, Lup.” He winced at his stuttering and how weak and hoarse he sounded. 

 

“Barry. No you’re not.” 

 

He sighed and hurriedly wiped at his eyes, trying to hide as much as he possibly could of the state he was in, but his face was already red with embarrassment. 

 

“O-okay.”

 

She opened the door into the dimly lit room and turned to gently close it behind her, being sure to not make a noise. He did his best to appear normal while looking anywhere but at her, not wanting his eyes to be seen. She approached him, keeping her gaze steadily on him. She paused once she was standing in front of him; he was dead silent and he knew it would be impossible for him to speak without giving everything away in his voice. She knelt down in front of him, looking up at him from her position on the floor. 

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

 

It was a long moment of silence before he could gather himself enough to speak; she patiently waited for him. 

 

“I-I don’t know, Lup. I’m frustrated that I haven’t been able to  _ do _ anything. Just, nothing. I was supposed to be the one armed with knowledge, the one able to explain things, but I’m — I have no place in all of this, anymore. I can’t do the one damn thing I’m supposed to do. And I’m --” he involuntarily gulped, keeping a single sob down, “I’m just so — gods, it’s hard to admit because it makes me sound like such a coward, and maybe I am, but I’m  _ afraid _ of the light. I wish we didn’t have it and that’s horrible of me, because having it is all we can even do right now. But it’s so much more than we think it is, I just know it, i-it’s -- there’s something sinister about it, and I’m kind of afraid to find out what it is. I know how that makes me sound, but -- I don’t know. That’s --” he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to maintain some semblance of composure. 

“That’s why I’m like this right now. Last year was hard. What we saw, around the light. I can’t get the image out of my head. That paired with the weirdness of the light up close, I-I don’t want to _be like that_ I don’t want to -- it sounds silly saying this out loud, but I’m afraid of what it might do to me if I’m around it too much.”

“...and,” he paused so that he could hold back the tears. “On top of all that, seeing Magnus -- and thinking about how often that is going to happen. How many times are we going to see each other dead or dying or hurt? How often are we going to have to live without one of us for months? We’re going into these worlds that we don’t know anything about, so the risk factor is always going to be high. And -- we’re going to see each other die. I don’t -- I don’t know if I’m strong enough to keep up. But there’s no other choice. I can’t get off of this ride, I can’t bow out, I can’t give up and hand things over to someone else. And when I start thinking like that, it makes me feel trapped, and I start to panic. It’s not because I don’t want to be here or that I don’t want to be with all of you -- i-it’s just knowing that there’s no other choice. It’s knowing that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop this or get away from it.” 

 

“Barry…” she looked up at him, waiting to get his eye contact so that she could reassure and comfort him with the sincerity in her gaze. They locked eyes and he was left breathless from the onslaught of emotion that he received from her look. She moved a reassuring hand to his knee, gently rubbing the side with her thumb. 

 

“Barry. None of that makes you sound like a coward. Unfortunately, all of those shitty, awful feelings and fears are totally justified and reasonable. And they’re not just yours. I think a lot of us are thinking about the same things, or we have our own strange set of fears. And shit, Barry, the light? I, uh — didn’t mention this when we talked before because I thought you were coming from a totally different place with what was worrying you, but — I’ve felt that draw to it, that attraction which yes, everyone generally feels but, I didn’t just feel drawn to it -- I’ve felt like it was  _ interested  _  in me, and only me. I thought that mentioning it would only cause more worry, so I didn’t, and that was a mistake. You’re absolutely right; there is a lot more to this thing than we know. And even though we know barely anything about it, it’s the only thing we have to work with.” 

 

She looked towards the floor, contemplating. “I think that we should have a talk with everyone. I get the feeling that we’re probably all feeling the same thing and all not wanting to alarm everyone else or make our fears known. Everyone is trying so hard to keep their shit together and act unaffected because breaking down right now -- it feels like that’s not an option. But being vulnerable and open isn’t a bad or weak thing. In this situation, I think we all need to start being more transparent and vulnerable with each other. We’ll probably get closer to answers that way; it’s not productive to keep anything a secret. Being open like this is a good thing, Barry. And I’m glad you trusted me enough to open up to me.” 

 

As she knelt down in front of him, she looked back up into his tear streaked face before continuing. “I -- will do whatever I can to never let anything bad happen to you. You know that, right? You don’t have to do anything alone. You don’t have to be with the light alone, you don’t have to worry alone, you don’t have to work for everyone else alone. We’re a team -- you and I. You and  _ everyone _ . All of us. But I -- I especially will not let anything bad happen with that light. You’re my friend. And nothing and no one fucks with my friends.” 

 

She used the hand on his knee to lightly push herself up and to her feet. She bent over him and planted a kiss on the top of his head and then tousled his hair in a slow and affectionate way and not in the hurried, playful way she had always done. Barry felt his breath leave him entirely and his body turn warm. The thought of crying or being upset in any way at all suddenly seemed far away and irrelevant. 

 

“You’re going to be okay, Barry. I know it. You have us but -- you’re also strong. Stronger than you give yourself credit for. And I believe in you.” 

 

She began to leave, but then turned back to Barry as she reached the door. “I was going to spend some time out on the deck. If you feel up to it, you can join me whenever.”   And with that, she quietly left his room.  

 

Everything was okay again. Only moments ago, he was hopeless and lost and useless and sick to his stomach with worry about himself, his friends, the future -- the possible end of existence itself. 

 

Not even ten minutes and he switched from deep despair and uncontrollable tears, to everything being okay again. 

 

Even just before she talked and he was still mortified at her finding him crying, _somehow_ things were already better despite the embarrassment. How could there ever be tragedy, how could there ever be sadness or anything wrong in any way when Lup existed? How could he possibly find anything to be sad about when Lup was there? 

 

If she so much as looked at him, everything was okay again. 

 

He got himself together, checked that the redness was gone from his eyes, considered changing -- but decided to say fuck it. She had literally _just_ seen him in his shirt and pajama pants. He quietly said a few random words to himself, making sure that the shakiness in his voice had subsided. Then he waited a few more minutes to give her some time to herself.

 

He joined her on the deck and they looked at the stars in comfortable silence. He felt everything in him relax, his mind and body un-tensed and his shoulders dropped; his anxiety uncoiled its suffocating grip around his brain. 

 

He felt safe because of her, but something else sparked in his mind and started to take form… he felt protective of her and wanted desperately to be capable of making her feel safe, too. It was a new feeling; he had never felt like he was someone who _could_ protect. He had already known for a while that he would follow her anywhere; but he realized that he would also do anything it took to protect her. Even if it meant finding something within himself that he had never thought existed and forcing it to be; to be able to fight, to be fearsome, to be unafraid. Things that Barry, and probably everyone who had ever known Barry, felt were impossible traits for him to have. 

Nevertheless, he could feel it stirring. It was in there; hidden somewhere that he had only just found. For Lup, he could find power and anger and he could be formidable. Not at all that she needed that, and she especially didn’t need it from him; the doughy, graying, middle aged science nerd. But he just knew, he knew right then that he was going to find ways to be better, to be -- _more_. He felt a sudden rise of adrenaline and drive and desire that was dizzying; of everything he had ever done or ever wanted to do in his life, he had never felt that kind of motivation. He had never been able to see so clearly what he was capable of being, _what he was going to be_. He felt all at once both strong and weak, like he could become a storm for her... but at the same time, if he even thought about her, if he looked over at her standing next to him, eyes aimed at the stars…  he melted, he surrendered, he was undone. 

 

Acknowledging that feeling and finally putting words to it made something click -- why he felt an uncontrollable warmth whenever she walked into the room, why his face was hot whenever she looked at him directly, why he pushed himself outside of his comfort zone to make her happy and to have fun with her. Why he was always either near her, or wondering where she was because he wanted to be near her. He realized then that it wasn’t even a _want_ anymore; somewhere along the line without him knowing, it had become a _need_ , like water or air. 

 

She was his amazingly talented colleague, and his closest friend out of everyone on the crew. Probably closest friend, ever.

 

Definitely closest friend ever.

 

But having those feelings wouldn’t be fair to anyone. It could impact his work, and that could fuck up things for the crew, including her, his best friend and the person he was in…

 

_ Fuck. _

 

Besides -- she deserved so much. More than he could ever give. And if he really cared about her, he would only want whatever would give her the best life; and that wasn’t him. So, any sort of longing would be infinitely selfish. Holding even the slightest hope or anticipation of something happening would be unfair, and would go against everything he wanted for her, everything she deserved. 

Maybe the feeling would pass. He was probably just overly emotional and vulnerable about her seeing him be such a sad sack -- and probably so pathetic that he _would_ develop a crush just because someone was nice to him.

 

No, no, no -- that made it sound like the only way he would like Lup in that way was if she were especially nice to him. She was obviously amazing; kind, smart as hell, fierce, funny, empathetic, the fastest learner he had ever known, talented and -- there were a million reasons to love her.

 

To _love_ her.

 

Love _her._

 

His thoughts halted there. He couldn’t get past those words. 

 

Fuck. He was in trouble. 

 

*******

 

After her conversation with Taako the year prior, Lup started to feel self-conscious about the amount of time she had been spending with Barry. She figured Taako had a point; it was maybe getting to be more than necessary and was at the expense of not seeing and working with others enough. Still, she felt that working with him was incredibly important and that he also obviously needed support. Plus, he was fun.

 

She didn’t bring up their talk to him again; she didn’t want it to seem like she pitied him, because she definitely didn’t, and she wasn’t about to start treating him with kid gloves. She was maybe still a little bit worried for him, but was confident that he was going to be okay and that he could handle himself. Even if he had doubts about whether he could. But she made sure that he knew that if he were going to work with or study the light, that they would do it together. He had other things to work on when she wasn’t around, after all, so she could make sure to balance her time between working with Barry and everyone else. 

 

Lup was going out for a scavenging and hunting day-trip with Magnus about ten months into the cycle. There was only the variety of very small life forms on that planet, of course, but they had some luck finding fish. They were living near a stream all cycle that had been a good source of fresh water for them during their stay. Magnus and Lup had figured a few months back that if they followed it, they might come across a larger body of water where there would hopefully be something along the lines of fish. They had, but after hitting it up a couple times and not wanting to totally deplete it, it was time for them to travel a little further in search of more. Lucretia was sitting out on the deck of the ship, watching them depart and writing in her journal about her observations of the sunrise, on watching Lup and Magnus leave, and on the plans of all of the individual crew members for the day as had been discussed over breakfast.  

 

And after having left immediately after breakfast, lunch time came around and Lup and Magnus weren’t back. That wasn’t too unusual, though; there were plenty of times where scavenging and hunting took longer than planned because they came across something promising that they had to follow up on, or because they  _ hadn’t  _ come across anything and wanted to press forward until they did. But then it was late afternoon and no one had heard from them and they couldn’t get them on their stones of far speech. Then it was dusk, so they split into search teams: Taako and Barry, Merle and Lucretia. 

 

They were out looking for a couple of hours, and as it started to get dark, they didn’t want to stop, but they also couldn’t risk losing anyone else. Taako and Barry especially struggled with admitting that they should turn back. Then Merle’s voice came in over their stones.

“So, we found something. And it’s not good.” 

 

Taako’s eyes widened. He replied only with “What.” Flat, assertive, not even a question. 

 

“It’s their packs and clothes by a river. And uh — bones. Just bones.”

 

Taako and Barry were both instantly and simultaneously chilled. And didn’t respond. The others understood and didn’t press for a response. 

 

They stood in silence for several moments before Taako spoke. 

 

“How the fuck is it just bones there, what does that even mean,” and halfway through his sentence he was already marching off towards the direction where Lucretia and Merle had set off for their half of the search. 

 

Barry followed, physically unable to speak. 

 

*** 

 

Taako tried to laugh through the tears when Barry found him out on the deck later, after the burial and deep into the night. 

 

“It’s ridiculous. It’s not even like they’re  _ actually  _ dead. But —“ Taako stopped short, momentarily swallowing his words before going on. 

 

“Ah shit, you let it all hang out with me earlier this year. So, fuck it. The truth is I’m not going to be able to rest or think straight until she’s back. Lup is  _ everything  _ to me, Barry; the only way we could be closer is if we shared the same skin. She could pop back up alive five seconds after dying and I’d still not be able to stand seeing her dead and I would miss her for that five seconds. So. Maybe that gives you an idea of how hard this is.”

 

Barry listened and nodded and continued to look out over the deck into the darkness as he responded -- 

 

“I won’t pretend like there’s anything I can say that would make it better, because there isn’t. But I can stay here if you want. Or, if there is anything you need that I can —” 

 

“No, just -- thanks for not bullshitting me with some ‘everything’s going to be alright’ crap. It’s okay and you’re right. There isn’t anything to say.” He folded his arms on top of the railing and stared off into the middle distance. After a prolonged silence, he suddenly remembered... “And yeah. You can stay here.”

 

*******

 

The next morning as soon as he was awake, Barry felt sick when he realized all over again that Lup was gone. He was going to leave his room and he wouldn’t hear her laugh bouncing down the hall from the common room. He wouldn’t see her face before anything else when he made his way to the entrance. He wouldn’t get to talk to her, to work with her, to go on outings and searches and hikes. Those were some of his favorite times, when they got to be totally alone. There wasn’t anything that made him happier than talking to her one on one, and, and, and...

 

Sitting up in his bed, he was suddenly doubled over and sobbing. Ever since his realization had hit him with an otherworldly force, it was like he fell into a pit of his feelings for her. He was drowning under the memories of every moment that had ever happened with her; every smile, every touch, every joke and laugh and look and he recognized it all for what it had been that whole time. Finally knowing, knowing it by name, knowing what it was -- it came at him all at once in an unbearable wave, and then he knew the feeling -- the feeling of being in love so much that it hurt. 

  
  


...

 

He wondered if maybe in a way, he had known the whole time. Or that he  _ should  _ have known. Or — he probably should have assumed that he was going to love her. 

 

That loving her was inevitable. 

 

He agonized over her absence. He was going to see her in a little over two months. But that was an impossibly long time to be away from someone like Lup. 


	10. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year ten

****  
  


The crew decided to get the morbid part of the conversation out of the way before their post-regeneration, celebratory ‘welcome back from the dead’ dinner. They had to wait until after Lup and Taako had their moment to themselves first, of course. 

 

Once they were all together in the common room, Lup and Taako were a tangle of limbs and braids, nested in the corner of the couch hogging most of the throw pillows and blankets in a pile around and under and behind them. Magnus sat next to their nest and was leaning into the pillows from the outside, Taako’s arm extending from out of the Lup/Taako/pillow pile to hang lazily around his shoulders.

 

“Fucking what?” Lup was incredulous. “Bones, for real? That same day?”  

 

“Yeah, there was nothing left for me to work with,” Merle stated irreverently. “... but seriously, it was a bad scene. Did  _ not  _ expect to find you kids like that.” 

 

“Was there anything else around? Merle? Luc?” 

 

Lucretia chimed in, “Not really. There wasn’t even anything -- on the bones. They were just there, clean, inside your clothes. It was as if you vanished, but only your flesh.” 

 

“Spooky,” Merle shuddered while recalling the scene. 

 

“All I remember,” Magnus straightened a bit as he joined the conversation causing Taako’s arm to limply fall off of his shoulders. “Is that I felt a sharp pain in my ankle, and then pretty much immediately was out.” 

 

“There were some snails around, we hadn’t seen those before.”

 

“Oh yeah, that’s right, Lup! There were these neat, colorful snails that started coming out from underneath the rocks we were sitting on and, oh shit --”

 

“Yeah. It was basically right as that happened, I just remember feeling like something tore into the bottom of my shoe and then a sort of sharp but numb pain? Weird to think that it would be snails, but they were the only thing different that happened. So like, maybe its shell? I don’t think I stepped on one, though.” 

 

“Occam's Razor, if they were the only new thing around that’s the simplest answer. Snails did it, obvi,” Taako said while his face was partially obscured by a blanket. “Never was into them. Slugs either. Slimy stuff in general. Not my jam. Totally not surprised that they’d be murderers.” 

 

“But -- just little snails? Really?” Magnus looked concerned. “I mean, I know that any of these planets can have anything in them, but stuff was so normal there, and they were kinda cool.”

 

“Ooh, Barry, you got any science for us?” Lup had stretched out like a cat and was draped over the couch arm, legs still lost somewhere in the pillow nest.

 

Barry snapped out of a daze. “Well, there are snails that have a uh -- you could call it like a tooth? It’s basica--”

 

“A fucking tooth?” Taako’s head popped out from the blankets. “A fucking snail with teeth? What kind of hellish nightmare fireside horror story shit are you spinning me here, Barold?”

 

Barry nervously rubbed the back of his neck and was about to continue when Taako squealed. 

 

“Lup pinched me!  _ Fucking pinched me! _ ”

 

“You can’t prove anything! --  _ maybe it was a little toothy snail _ ,” and she went at him, alternating quick pinches with each hand as he yelped and scrambled out of the blankets and behind Magnus, squirming between him and the back of the couch to get to his other side where Davenport sat. He righted himself and crammed his body into a sitting position between Magnus and Davenport, straightened his posture, crossed his arms and raised his nose into the air. 

 

“Go on with your scary story, Barold. How did some toothy snails ice these fools?” 

 

“So, just uh -- I guess they could have been venomous,” Barry got the words out quickly. He was wanting to leave the room and go anywhere else; he couldn’t keep his eyes from drifting towards Lup over and over again and he didn’t want anyone to notice. He missed her and had been struggling with his feelings in her absence; she had completely occupied his mind  _ and also she was being so cute, and…  _

 

Everyone was looking expectant, waiting for more. “And uh, I uh -- probably something that could, uh -- dissolve, er -- stuff. Or just a lot of them that ate -- stuff. Kinda like carrion beetles but maybe uh, faster?” Barry noticed the silence and the looks on the faces around him. “Yeah, I mean, whatever it was, i-it was probably gross and better not to think about.” 

 

“Yeesh,” Taako was suddenly serious looking and everyone else quietly contemplated the simple, unknown danger of their last world and wondered what could be waiting for them outside of the ship, even as they spoke. 

  
  


***

 

A day later, while on his shift watching for the light, Merle saw it approaching. He ran to inform everyone, dancing as he did because it was his first time being the one to see it on watch and getting to make the announcement made him feel important. Everyone was ready, having learned to stay close and be prepared to take off at a moment’s notice for the first couple days until the light either showed up or presumably fell somewhere that they couldn’t see. As Davenport took them up and towards the still falling light, it was timed perfectly to be close enough to see where it was going to land before it had fallen all the way and -- they watched in dismay as it fell into an ocean. 

 

“Well. Shit.” Merle was especially disappointed; he was so excited about finding it that he had already in his mind taken some ownership of the success that he assumed was coming for that year. “What now, fellas?” Magnus and Barry standing next to him, looking out of the large circular starboard window, just shrugged. 

 

***

 

It wasn’t long before they found a fairly large city with a level of development and technology that was familiar to them. They figured that it was worth a shot asking around to see whether the planet had anything that could make deep-sea travel possible; it felt wrong to completely write-off trying to get the light without performing the due diligence to find out if any options existed. They were summarily dismissed or even laughed at by the locals, but for more than one reason -- one being that what they were asking for seemed completely absurd to them, and the other reason being that, aside from Taako, they weren’t wearing hats. 

 

As they found out quickly, mostly by being heavily shunned, the entire society there was very hat-oriented. It didn’t seem so much like they were markers of wealth or anything religious or to do with status -- it was just something that was expected of everyone, to the point where it was jarring and offensive to the local people for anyone to be seen without a hat. Taako was immediately accepted and fawned over, his hat being one of the largest and most elaborate ever seen by them, and also of a design that was not one that existed in their world. The color purple also seemed to be fairly rare; when it was found on any sort of fabric there, it was lacking vibrancy and depth. Whatever substance they used to formulate their dyes, there wasn’t anything that fulfilled the requirements to make the same sort of deep, royal purple as Taako’s hat. 

 

Taako enjoyed the attention and was glowing when he got back to the Starblaster where everyone else had holed up in order to not upset the locals. His smile was wiped off of his face though, when Lup pointed out that he would be solely responsible for going out and earning the money to get them all hats if they were going to leave the ship. 

 

***

Barry had been shaken ever since his realization in the previous cycle. But, he had firmly decided that he was going to do everything he could to be a good friend and to do things that would make Lup happy. He thought that maybe being helpful and fun for her and seeing her enjoy life might assuage his feelings. Maybe her being happy was all he really needed. What could be better than Lup being happy? But, as far as his own newfound feelings went, it didn’t help get them off of his mind. Her smile and her laugh when she joked, when she wrinkled her nose or twitched her ears, when she jumped up and down with excitement, when she would draw in her sketchbook next to him in the lab as he read whenever there was something they were waiting on together... her raised eyebrows, her thinking face, the face she made when she was teasing him, and gods -- her voice… every single solitary thing on the list of Lup-ness he was in love with. 

 

She was often touching him in some small way and it was  _ always  _ overwhelming for him. And ever since he had figured out his feelings for her, he felt guilty about her touch, even though he wasn’t the one initiating it. It felt like he was getting more out of those touches than she was aware of, and that didn’t sit well with him. For her, it was just a way to express closeness to friends; she was affectionate with everyone. She was always sure to offer a hug to Davenport whenever he expertly guided them away from danger. She would sometimes put a hand on top of Merle’s head and act as if she were using him as a kickstand to support herself. She would set her head on Lucretia’s shoulder when they were all sitting around together. And there was the couple of times where she jumped up on Magnus’s back, laughing maniacally and proclaiming that she was twice as tall as anyone on the ship and she would fight any of them or all of them at once. She even had a secret handshake with Magnus… she had also been spending a lot more time with Magnus. They had even had a few one on one expeditions together. That had happened before; nearly everyone had some project or trip that they had done with everyone else. But it was becoming more frequent for her and him to go. Or sometimes going with him and Taako, or him and Merle. What if…

 

Barry shook his head as if to dislodge the thought so it would fall out of his mind. If there was -- something, he would be better for her than himself, obviously.  _ That  _ was someone who could protect her, who could protect others with her, who could be strong  _ for  _ and  _ with  _ her. Someone who better matched her boisterous personality and strength, who was funny and kind. He would be happy for her. If that was something she wanted. Which he was fairly doubtful of, but in his fragile state of mind, it took root and grew into a large possibility. But, he would really be happy for her, for -- anything at all that made her happy, really. Even if it was something that would break him in half. 

 

***

 

Lup and Taako burst in through the main entrance of the Starblaster and into the common room, Taako walking in first with his arms raised. “We’re taking tonight off, compadres!” 

 

Lup was skipping up behind him, wearing a newly bought, green velvet hat; it was small and adorned with iridescent feathers and attached to a headband that placed it at an angle on her head.“Taako and I just totally wasted some chumps at cards!”

 

“Hell yeah! Their idea of card games and gambling here is hella easy to exploit, so now we’re flush with cash!”

 

“And we’re all going out, we fucking deserve it!” Lup threw a bag of coins down on the common room table. “Let’s go get some hats!”

***

Merle ended up being the one to stay with the Starblaster while everyone went out. The second they had exited the ship, Taako expressed his worry over that decision.

“I really hope we don’t all fucking die while he’s just sitting there, weaving Pan friendship bracelets for our dead asses, waiting for us to get back.” 

“He did fairly well when I was training him on piloting,” Davenport cut in. “He can screw up sometimes, but that doesn’t make him a screw up. We all don’t quite do the right thing, sometimes. For example -- Lup and Magnus got eaten by snails.”

“Hey! What was I supposed to do about that?” Magnus asked, sounding almost sincerely hurt. “Could have just as easily been anyone else.” 

Davenport continued, “Anyways, I’m confident that he will do fine. And besides; he was really disappointed about the light. I get the impression that he wants more responsibility.”

“Oh, Cap’n, so sweet, looking out for all of our feelings,” Lup laughed and dipped down to give Davenport a short hug around his shoulders as they walked. 

They all felt much more welcome going into town that time; they were no longer getting dirty looks or insults once they had their heads covered. Magnus had picked up a hat that was large and fur-trimmed with little metal accents and low-sweeping sides that covered his ears. Lucretia found something similar to Lup’s, but silver; more of a hair piece than a hat, but still apparently met the societal standards. Davenport picked up the most plain and unadorned black cap that he could find, much to Lup’s dismay. When they came across a top-hat, Lup  _ begged _ Barry to get it. He had never really liked hats of any kind, and wearing something so -- big and attention grabbing that looked fairly silly in contrast to his clothes was not at all something he would have ever done. But he was going to be with Lup and she was really excited by the idea, and what better way to have fun that night than to go along with her every adorable whim? 

***

They found a bar that was just dark and divey enough to really grab both Lup and Magnus’s attention, but not so divey that anyone else protested to it. Stepping inside, they all went to the bar for ordering together, but then split up and wandered off to their own things after. Seeing him having trouble deciding, Lup ordered something for Barry -- having to hold back giggles first though, because she kept forgetting that she had talked him into getting and wearing a top hat, and that he was rocking it like a champ. She ordered them both something that sounded incredibly intimidating to Barry -- and made sure that it was preceded by shots, twice. They heard someone making an announcement from the other side of the bar, and upon hearing it, Lup jumped up and down, clapping.

“Oh shit! They’re doing trivia! And we got Barry the genius here! We’re going to win fucking everything, come on come on come on!” and she pulled him by the arm towards the booth where Lucretia and Davenport had sat down, swinging by the trivia host’s table to pick up an answer sheet on the way. Getting to the booth, they squished themselves in, Lup by Lucretia and Barry by Davenport, who was instantly confused about their decision to participate.

“You realize this is pointless, right?”

“Don’t be such a downer, Cap'n Port, we’re all smart as fuck, even if we’re drinking, and also  _ Barry is a fucking genius in case you didn’t know _ .” Barry tried looking out from the booth and around the bar, at anything, anywhere, to try and hide the profuse flush of red washing over his face. 

After waiting for things to get started, and downing their drinks at Lup’s encouragement, the host’s voice boomed over the chattering of the drunken crowd. “All right! We’re going to get started now, hopefully you all have your answer sheets ready. Let’s go ahead and kick it off with an easy one. Question number one: what was the popular nickname for the magistrate of the Grambe High Court who served during the One Hundred Rotations war?” 

Davenport looked just slightly smug and Lucretia laughed gently under her breath. 

Lup’s eyes went wide. “Oh, right. Yeah, why the fuck are we doing this? We don’t know shit about this place! Abort mission!” and while giggling uncontrollably, Lup reached over the table and grabbed Barry by the wrist and they both fled from the booth, leaving Lucretia and Davenport with their abandoned trivia papers. 

After rushing to the other side of the bar where they could be hidden from view of the host, Barry and Lup stopped and turned to face each other, trying to stifle their laughter and acting as if they just nearly missed getting into trouble. Once they gained their composure, they saw another booth towards the back where Magnus had just been sitting with Taako, but was left alone after Taako had been taken aside by some bar goers who were entranced with his hat and wanted to buy him drinks. Magnus looked content, taking the occasional giant swig from a large, heavy glass of pale green, effervescent liquid. Lup continued to drag Barry along with her, and they popped into Magnus’s booth, Barry sliding in to sit next to him and Lup being happy to take up an entire side to herself to sprawl out in. 

“Hey, you two! How’s it going?”

Lup leaned over the table, smacking her hands down on it and looking straight at Magnus. “We just escaped an embarrassing trivia situation and we’re just like so stealth as hell, Barry and I are stealth as  _ fuck  _ and we’re very good at running away into the night, never to be seen again.”

Barry snorted, “I’m pretty sure everyone saw us. And we almost crashed into that waitress.” 

“Barold! Magnus didn’t know that! I was trying to make us sound cool!” 

Magnus chortled. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want me to think either of you are cool.” 

...

Lup and Magnus started chatting and Barry, drunk and feeling especially mushy, had a goofy grin on his face and  _ maybe  _ looked at Lup for a little bit too long from across the table as she continued to talk with Magnus. She was just -- fucking amazing and perfect and spending time with her was like spending time with the sun. He thought about how lucky he was to know her, and even luckier to be friends with her and to be spending time just having fun with her in a bar. In that moment, he felt suddenly overwhelmed with warmth and contentment about getting to know her more -- and getting to know everyone else more, as well. There was a lot wrong, of course. An incredibly, terrifying amount of things wrong. But, there was also a lot to appreciate in this new life of theirs. If she hadn’t been part of the crew, he would still be hiding away, unsure of where or how to even start talking with or relating to anyone. If she hadn’t been part of the crew… she wouldn’t exist at all. But she did, and he knew her and talked to her and was even getting to be with her right then. Fate and luck seemed like such real, tangible things in the context of Lup just simply existing. And him being someone who actually  _ knew  _ her and got to see her every day. He was so incredibly lucky.    
  


He reveled in the rare moment of an anxiety-free mind, being sure to soak it in and appreciate it, to remember it for later when things got stressful again, until his thoughts were interrupted by Magnus.

 

“What do you think, Barry?” 

 

“Oh… what?” 

 

Lup started laughing and Magnus looked like he was taking it personally that Barry hadn’t been paying attention to what he was saying. Nervous about whether either of them had noticed that he was looking at Lup too much and that she was the reason he was distracted, he did his best to play it off.

“Whoa, damn -- I never get this drunk.”

“That’s because you’re like, all super in love with your brain, isn’t it?” Lup said, continuing to giggle, as she had been almost non-stop.

Barry chuckled. “Yeah, so? What’s wrong with wanting to stay sharp?” 

“Pfft, weren’t sharp enough for trivia,” Lup mumbled, sarcastically.

Barry drunkenly tripped over his words, “That’s not fair; how am I s’posed to know about this place and their mabitrades -- ma -- magi--”

“DID YOU JUST SAY MABITRADES?” Lup fell against the inside wall of the booth and completely dissolved into hysterical laughter.

“I’m drunk! You did this to me with your peer pressure!”  Barry laughed, only half embarrassed, covering his face with his hands. 

“Anywayyys,” Magnus interjected, “Barold. Cap'n Port against Merle; who do you think would win at arm wrestling?”  

“Ooh, hmm.” Barry rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I mean, the captain does have to steer the ship and that takes some muscle, especially when things get hectic… and I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen Merle use his arms.”

“Well  _ I  _ think it would be Merle,” Lup was barely recovering from laughing and still out of breath, but sounded self assured as she leaned back into the booth. 

Magnus waited a moment, expecting a reason. “And -- why is that?” 

“He would cheat.” 

“Would he?” Barry questioned. “He seems like a good sport about things.”  

Magnus turned to Barry, a look of pity on his face. “Oh, Barold. You haven’t seen how he cheats Cap'n Port under the table when they’re playing cards; and they don’t even bet anything. He just  _ has  _ to feel like a winner. I think Cap’n might even know, and just lets him!” 

“Moving on,” Lup waved a hand dismissively, “ Merle is a boring topic and I don’t care about arm wrestling because the only important question is who would beat everyone and the answer is me, so let’s talk ab--”

“Wait wait wait,” Magnus put up both of his hands to pause Lup. “You think you could beat  _ me _ at arm wrestling?”

“Oh yeah, of course.” Lup was so casual and self assured and Barry could feel Magnus bristling; it was hilarious. 

“Alright! Let’s go!” 

“Give it here!” Lup already had slammed her elbow down on the table and was ready. Magnus got his arm into position and they grasped hands. 

After struggling for only a second, Magnus was steadily angling her arm down towards the table when he suddenly yelped and quickly pulled his hand away and Lup fell into an uncontrollable wave of laughter. 

Barry looked on with confusion. “What happened?” 

Magnus was examining his hand for any marks. “She burned me!” 

Lup was wiping tears from her eyes. “Don’t be a baby, I barely warmed up your hand. Anyways! Like I was saying, arm wrestling is  _ boooring _ and I’m done talking about it and we’re going to play truth or dare now.” 

Magnus put down his hand after his thorough inspection and tilted his head towards Barry. “No, this is how she gets you. I mean, you  _ know  _ her dares are going to be wild, so you think you’re safe picking truth but she will find the  _ weirdest  _ or most personal things to ask you.” He turned to stare down Lup with narrowed eyes, “Girl’s maniacal.  _ Or,  _ she’ll just ask you to tell her stories about anyone you’ve ever dated because apparently she likes that real mushy stuff.” 

“No! I just have a morbid curiosity about my friends’ lives -- plus most dating and past relationship stories are absolute disasters and I love that stuff, I drink it up.” 

Barry thought back on the last time he had a conversation at a bar with Lup. “Oh yeah, she wanted to know all about my uh, love --um, life and -- uh, got some personal stuff out of me, but then wouldn’t tell me anything about her.”

“Oh bullshit Barry, you barely told me fucking anything! You gotta give me more before I tell you jack shit!” As soon as the words were out, Lup remembered her realization from the last time that conversation had happened. She quickly added, “unless it’s sad, you don’t have to say anything if it’s sad.” 

“So, if I lie and say it was sad, I don’t have to talk about it?” 

“Barold! I don’t think you could lie if your life depended on it!” 

“I could lie! I just -- haven’t wanted to,” he said, feigning indignance. “-- but what about Magnus? We can’t just leave him out of the conversation.” 

“Maggy here says he hasn’t had any relationships and I think he’s  _ lying too because he’s shy.”  _

_ “ _ I am not! And also, I  _ hate  _ Maggy.” 

Lup fake-pouted. “But then you can’t rhyme with Barry!” 

Barry furrowed his brow. “But -- that doesn’t  _ really  _ rhyme...” 

“Okay fine,” Lup stuck her nose in the air and crossed her arms. “Then one of you has to choose between Marry or Baggy.” 

Magnus laughed warmly. “Actually, we don’t  have  to do  _ anything _ !” he proclaimed while putting an arm around Barry’s shoulders.

Barry returned the gesture with an arm around Magnus’s shoulders and emphatically agreed, “Yeah! What Marry said!” 

Magnus removed his arm and jokingly shoved Barry away and Lup dissolved once again, arms wrapped around herself and tears in her eyes from laughter as Barry was almost launched out of the booth and onto the floor.

***

Davenport and Lucretia had returned to the Starblaster earlier than the others and were sitting around the dining table with Merle when the rest of the group returned, drunk and rowdy and still wearing their hats. Magnus had an arm around Barry and they were laughing together about something, Taako was carefully cradling three large bottles of liquor in his arms, and Lup had an open bottle in one hand and an unopened one in the other. She pranced over to the table and set the unopened bottle in front of Lucretia.

“I thought you would like this wine because it’s classy and you’re classy and you should get drunk with us?” 

Lucretia laughed in her soft way and got up to get glasses. Everyone else clumsily pulled up chairs and sat around the table. 

“I didn’t realize the party was coming back here,” Davenport eyed the stumbling, giggling group. 

“Yeah, of course! The party follows you, Cap'n Port!” Magnus had pulled up his chair next to Davenport and then had an arm around both his and Barry’s shoulders as they sat down. 

“I’m pretty sure when I left that I said the opposite of what I wanted coming back on board was a party.” 

“Oh Cap'n Port, treating every day like it’s opposite day,” Taako gave him a coy smile and took a swig from one of his bottles.  

“I absolutely do not.”

Lup broke in, talking louder than she was aware of  “Yeah! Cap’n Port is the biggest partier that I know! He lives for this!”

“I have no idea where you’re getting this from,” Davenport maintained his air of seriousness even as everyone held back laughter and were very obvious about the fact that they were joking. 

Lup limply leaned over the table setting her elbows down and supporting her head with her upturned hands. “You know we’re just joking, Cap’n. We love you to death and you should have ten drinks right now and catch up with us.” 

Davenport’s expression softened a bit and he let go of some of the seriousness in his expression. “Yeah, I guess I could use a drink... especially after dealing with all of your bullshit tonight,” he said, somehow stern and affectionate and joking all at once. 

Taako lost it, “Cap’n Port burned us good! We just got blasted!” 

Lup almost jumped out of her chair and gasped at the opportunity to say “ _ STAR BLASTED!”  _ and her and Taako had to lean in and hold on to each other for support in order to not fall out of their seats while they howled with laughter and Davenport cracked a smile at them. Lucretia had come back with a tray of glasses and stood still in the doorway for a moment, not knowing what she was walking in on. 

***

Late into the night, they were deep in their drinks and were spread around the common room and dining area in various states of wakefulness, in an array of postures ranging from completely slumped over to standing and gesticulating wildly. There was a running overarching conversation that they were somehow maintaining during smaller one-on-one discussions while also butting in on each other’s topics with their own takes. It was a friendly, noisy chaos that they remained deeply invested in for hours. 

From his spot sitting on the floor in front of the couch with his head thrown back on the cushion behind him, Magnus gasped and suddenly looked up. “Oh that’s right! We have something to settle!” He looked over at Merle, “Who do you think would win at arm wrestling -- you or Cap’nPort?” 

“Oh well, me of course!” Merle patted his chest and looked proud of himself for something he hadn’t even done yet. 

“What do you think, Cap’n Port? Can you take Merle? Oh! We should place bets!” 

Davenport was strangely silent and still in his place on the couch across from Magnus. Magnus waved his hand in front of his face, trying to get his attention while Merle watched and laughed. 

“He isn’t there, is he?” Taako side eyed Lucretia, sure that she would know. She laughed behind a hand raised to her mouth. 

“He went to sleep about an hour ago.” 

“I swear! He only ever uses his illusory magic to fuck with us. Name one time where he actually used it for anything other than to fuck with us?” Taako waved his half full bottle in front of him while slumping back into the couch, almost sloshing some of the drink onto himself. 

***

As the crew members filtered out one by one, going off to bed or just to decompress and get some quiet time before sleep, Barry and Lup eventually found themselves the only two left awake, settled on the couch and talking. 

They were both nearing the end of their energy for the night and were getting slower and slower as they spoke. There was a small lull in the conversation and Barry knew it had to be filled immediately before he started goofily and drunkenly staring at her again. 

 

“So, it isn’t actually that sad. Kind of serious I guess, and I didn’t want to sour the mood or uh, I don’t know, talk about it in front of Magnus.” 

 

“Wait, what?” Lup sleepily rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. 

 

“Relationship stuff. I won’t make you ask again, since you obviously want to know so bad,” and he smirked, but was still shy enough about the topic to be looking at the floor instead of her. 

 

“Ooh, ooh, yes! Give me the dirt, Barold!” she flipped up from her lazily sprawled out position on the couch and turned to face Barry, crossing her legs and grabbing a pillow to hug while eagerly staring him down. 

 

“So, there honestly isn’t much to it; I wasn’t trying to keep a big secret from you or anything like that. Was just someone I met in college, and we were together for five years. There’s -- not really a lot to say about it. We were both really busy and I think it was just, convenient?” 

 

“Oh dang, five years. That’s a long time for humans?”

 

“Eh, kind of I guess.” 

 

“...were you married?”

 

“Oh, uh. No. Um... I had started thinking about it just because I felt like that was what was supposed to happen next. And I guess that’s, uh. That’s when I knew that -- it wasn’t good. Taking a step forward felt like an obligation and not something I was excited about.”

 

“Damn. That sucks, Barry.”

 

Barry just shrugged. “Better than getting married and being unhappy though, I guess.” 

 

“Well, yeah. Smart move there. Uh… sorry for making you talk about that. I can be pushy sometimes, ‘specially drunk.” 

 

“It’s okay, you’re just curious.” Still looking away, he gave her a smarmy side-smile and said with a teasing tone, a tone of voice that he had picked up from her, “I’m flattered you want to know so much about me.” 

 

Lup rolled her eyes. “I’ve known you for a decade, Barold! A decade! And you have just now told me a couple sentences about your  _ intimate  _ past. You’re something else.” she tossed the pillow to the floor and kicked herself back using the edge of the couch cushion, leaning back to rest her head on the couch arm and straightening her legs out, settling them over Barry’s lap. 

 

It took every muscle in Barry’s body not to jump in surprise, and then he had to work at keeping his pounding heart somewhere on the humanly possible scale of beats per minute. Settling her hands behind her head and getting fully comfortable, she smiled looking over at Barry. Nerd had probably spent so much time alone that he just didn’t know how to react to affection. And it sounded like the relationship he had was maybe not so -- warm or loving. Lup was very used to casual touching and being in close proximity with others. Her and Taako had been basically attached at the hip constantly for their years on their own. Physical affection to her meant healing, it meant comfort, it meant showing trust and fondness. And she felt comfortable with Barry, and she trusted him, and she was very, very fond of her friend.  

 

Barry had been so bold and confident all night, and she had had so much fun with him. His smile was so genuine; everything about him was honest, warm. He was just -- an immediately trustworthy person and she loved that about him; she loved having people like  _ that  _ in her life. She couldn’t see him being someone who would ever lie, who would ever be out for just himself, who would ever even  _ accidentally  _ harm someone. He was just the absolute softest -- but still so capable and dedicated and strong in his resolve and his abilities. He was -- safe.

 

Still very drunk as she pondered on the concept of Barry in all his Barry-ness, she looked at him silently, her smile widening, for maybe a little bit too long. His eyes met hers and he was  _ instantly  _ nervous, and she could tell. How fucking adorable; even with all the confidence and casualness he had displayed that night, he was still unsure how to handle more personal interactions. He would get there, though, she was sure of it. One step at a time. As she felt herself getting too comfortable and starting to fade, she realized that there was one thing she really wanted to get from him before she went to bed...

“So, Barry -- that waitress that we almost crashed into earlier. Pretty hot, huh?”

And he deeply blushed and started to stutter a response that he didn’t have. 

_ There it was.  _

She laughed and leaned forward to nudge his shoulder affectionately. “So cute.”

Barry’s entire body and brain froze.

“Okay my nerd, bed time! This girl’s gotta sleep off her buzz so that we get back to being  _ sharp  _ tomorrow,” and she winked at him and bounced off of the couch and drunkenly skipped away. Shaky and even stumbling a bit, she was still somehow the most graceful person he had ever seen.

 

***

 

Their takeoff at the end of that year was bittersweet. They gathered near each other as they looked out the window, reflecting on the time they had together on the world below -- the world that they weren’t able to do anything for, despite searching for answers or possible solutions all throughout the year, asking everyone they came across. But they had grown even closer and had found new spots of warmth in their hearts for each other. And they were grateful to at least have gained that. 

 

As Davenport expertly wove the ship through falling ashen pillars of inky blackness and iridescent streaks of color, they headed over the area of the ocean where they had watched the light sink earlier that year. There was an -- absolutely huge ring of bubbling and foaming water. It was as if there was a disk of water that was slightly higher than the rest of the ocean, and its entirety was filled with a turmoil that was not expressed anywhere in the water outside of that circle. As they looked down on it in awe and contemplated its meaning, they saw something illuminated at the center of it, coming from deep underneath the water. Assuming it was the light, they watched the faint glow but then they saw it rising up through the water, the light becoming brighter and clearer. As it grew in intensity and rose up through the water enough to be more visible beneath the surface, they saw that it was not one light, but two. Two golden glowing orbs, each one larger than the ship, languidly ascending towards them through the glimmering, dark blue water. And then they saw them sluggishly blink. And as they opened back up, drawing closer still, the crew could make out what were faintly darker circles in the center of the luminescent spheres. And some -- impossibly dark, cavernous space opening from under them, sucking in the angry, frothing sea from all around it. And then they were gone.  


	11. Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Eleven

****  
  


They found themselves on another planet without a civilization to speak of. They were surrounded by nature, and it was an especially beautiful planet with breathtaking sights and consistently comfortable weather. They spent  the day after regeneration all out on the deck together; the beauty of what would be their home for the next year, paired with the closeness that they had developed in the cycle before made it a great time to have the conversation that Lup had suggested to Barry that they all have. She talked to him about it first, making sure that he was open to the idea of having that talk. Aside from their drunken night out, he had started to clam up a little bit again and was back to being more on the nervous side and overly apologetic. She thought it might have been because of the delicate state that she found him in, so she wanted to make sure that he actually felt up to talking with everyone, or if he was maybe feeling too fragile still to let on anything about his fears. It turned out that he was actually eager to have the discussion, especially before any trace of the light had shown up. 

 

When they talked, they found out what Lup had already guessed; everyone was having alarming experiences, thoughts, and feelings whenever the light was on board. And everyone felt alone in those feelings, and felt that it was better to not bring it up. They pondered over  what it all meant; it wasn’t just that the light had a draw to it, but that it had some sort of manipulative power to it. It had the ability to convince them of -- things, and the power to potentially divide them or to make them feel isolated from each other. They promised to share every little detail with each other from then on, whether it seemed relevant or not. They needed to be one hundred percent transparent, Lup told them, and maybe with their experiences and gained knowledge combined, they would eventually get some answers. Or, at least some ideas on what to do when they did have the light, on what to do about the Hunger. 

 

After their group conversation, Lup took Barry aside and thanked him again for trusting her and opening up to her; they may have never had the group discussion if he hadn’t done that. 

 

“It’s hard, Barry. It’s… incredibly hard to be vulnerable. I wasn’t able to do it, and no one else was either, and we wouldn’t have been able to have this conversation if you weren’t.”

 

Barry just turned red and said, “Thanks, Lup.” 

 

***

  
  


Lup and Barry spent a large part of that year going on long expeditions. They were on their third one that cycle; there was a lot to learn on their current plane, lots of good specimens for practice with running different types of tests that Barry had been wanting to teach Lup, and plenty of resources that could be distilled into much needed chemical compounds. They also hadn’t found a single trace of the light yet, so exploring anywhere in any direction was at least  _ something _ . 

 

The seasons were dramatic, seeming  to shift suddenly and without warning. When they had first set out, it was two days of pleasantly sunny weather with long lasting daylight and warmth enough for Lup to be comfortable in shorts and a crop top, but with the slightest breeze so that they never broke a sweat on their long hikes over the flat, grassy fields. 

 

The sunsets seemed to last for forever; there were literal hours of hazy goldness as they walked, and it was dreamlike as the breezy air moved the surrounding grassy fields in a slow and steady way that made the grass look almost liquid. It was a beauty that was emotionally moving to both Lup and Barry, and though they were silent during those times, it was never once an awkward silence. There was an understanding that they were just taking it all in, and happy to be doing so together. It was an intoxicating, hypnotic, sweeping feeling of elation and unfiltered joy, expanded over multiple hours. Feeling like that alongside Lup would have almost been too much to handle for Barry, if he were able to actually focus. But it was all foggy and hazy and entrancing; too much so to think, too much so to do anything other than be completely in the moment. The words ‘golden’ and ‘warm’ were the best descriptors and it was what Barry and Lup both felt like; bathed in gold, liquid, warmth. There needed to be another word, invented specifically for the feeling. It was indescribable, even with Barry’s expansive vocabulary and the observational skills of someone who had been a professional scientist their entire adult life, plus going on eleven years of … whatever kind of life stage that was happening to them on their journey.

 

The evenings were also pleasant and room-temperature and full of a heavy, sweet smelling grassy scent, but the onset of night felt like falling out of a trance. They were suddenly able to speak and plan and write and work on setting up camp and taking samples from their surroundings. When the third night came though, the plane’s equivalent of winter started as soon as the sun went down. 

 

***

 

They had brought extra clothes and blankets, but the temperature dropped rapidly and dramatically during the short amount of time they took to set up camp. Lup had pulled on extra clothes and donned her robe, but she was shivering uncontrollably by the time they were setting up their campfire. She sustained a small globe of fire in her cupped palms, but it was only really enough to keep her hands warm. 

 

“I think I’ll probably need to have dinner in my tent,” Lup informed Barry. “I can’t stay out here any longer; the cold and I don’t really agree.” 

 

Barry nodded in understanding, but couldn't help the selfish feeling of being disappointed that they wouldn’t be eating together. He had never really been much for talking during meals, but conversation with Lup was something he could never get enough of. More than anything though, he wanted her to be comfortable and safe and watching her shivering was distressing. 

 

Barry nodded, “Of course. You get yourself comfortable and I’ll take care of the fire before I get to my tent.” 

 

She smiled and shuffled over to her tent, rubbing her warmed up hands over her arms as she crossed them over herself. Barry watched her disappear into her tent and zip shut the door and he suddenly felt very alone. 

 

After eating and putting out the fire, Barry climbed into his own tent to sleep. His body ran fairly hot, so he was able to take off his jeans and robe before flattening out his sleeping bag and lying on top with a blanket over him. He hated the feeling of being trapped inside of a fabric tube, so he always slept on top of his sleeping bag after fully unzipping it and spreading it out. He lied down, hands under his head, looking at the ceiling of his tent, in a shirt and boxers. He had forgone packing his normal sleepwear to save on space, and also figuring that there wouldn’t be any walking around in the middle of the night and risking being seen by the crew.

 

Lying down, he felt a nervous impatience; he wanted the night to pass so that he could get back to walking and talking and working with Lup. He had spent so much of his life working alone and being alone in general, but it just didn’t do anymore. He had been spoiled on Lup’s company. He knew that there would never be anything more to what they had, and he was fine with that. As long as he could continue having the time he got with her and the pleasure of working alongside her… he could endure his feelings forever. He might long for more, but getting to spend so much time with someone as intelligent and talented and endearing as her was already more than he could have ever hoped to happen in his life. 

 

He felt a pit forming in his chest as he thought about the small bit of time he missed out on with her because of the cold. As if she wasn’t outside in her own tent, as if he wasn’t going to see her the next day, all day, and for the next several days. As if they didn’t have a seemingly endless amount of time, as if they hadn’t already had years of time together. It still somehow hurt him to miss out on an hour with her. 

 

As Barry sighed deeply, trying to will away the emptiness forming within him, he heard Lup’s tent unzip. And then he heard her voice from outside. “Hey, Barry?” 

 

He scrambled out from under his blankets, practically threw his glasses onto his face, and unzipped the door, feeling a gust of cold push its way in as he did. She was kneeling at the tent door, arms hugging herself for warmth, shivering, in layers of clothing with her IPRE robe over her and a blanket around her shoulders over that. 

 

“H-hey, Lup.” He was staring and still until he realized that she shouldn’t be in the cold and he moved aside while motioning her in. She quickly hopped into the tent and rubbed her arms while Barry zipped the door back up. 

 

“Woof, too damn fucking cold, gods.” She looked him up and down, and Barry realized with horror that he was in just a shirt and boxers and that there was nothing he could do about it except uncontrollably turn red. But, she only asked, “How in the entire hell are you able to not be completely bundled up?” 

 

“Oh, uh, I um -- run pretty hot. Got all this extra padding,” he tried to laugh and calm himself. He knew it was probably blatantly obvious that he was blushing like crazy and desperately trying to be normal. 

 

“Well cool, that’s even better because I wanted to see if I could maybe bunk with you? I’m too cold to sleep no matter how much I cocoon myself in blankets. But if that would be uncomfy or too crowded for you, it’s totally cool. I don’t really need to get much sleep, anyways. It can just be hard for me to even concentrate enough to meditate when it’s cold; sleep is a little easier.” 

 

Barry felt lightheaded from the shock of what was just asked of him and from not knowing how to respond (he of course knew that the answer was a resounding yes, mostly because of course he wanted to help Lup, but also because it meant getting to be near her when he was just lamenting over the hour he didn’t get to spend across the fire from each other). But how could he even gather his breath to say the words that he didn’t have to tell Lup yes, of course she could sleep in his tent, in the small cramped space that was meant only for one person. And that he would keep her warm  _ gods she wanted him to keep her warm _ . 

 

“Uh y-yeah, of course, Lup,” he barely managed to get the words out and hoped she wouldn’t notice how nervous he was. But, after years together, of course she did. 

 

“Barry, it’s okay if you don’t want to, I’ll be fine.” 

 

“No, no uh; sorry Lup, I’m -- sorry. I’m just tired and didn’t expect you,” he desperately tried to turn off the sirens in his head. “And, uh I guess I’m not really dressed like a proper host.” He tried again to laugh, but it was weak and almost more like a cough.

 

Lup eyed him, searching for signs of discomfort. “Okay, Barold. But you’ve got to promise me that you’ll let me know if you’re not cool at any point.”

 

“Promise,” he sighed with relief. “Should I, uh -- get dressed?” 

 

“I don’t want you to burn up. And you’re already modest enough; I think I’ve seen legs before, Barold,” she smirked and winked at him. “You’re not nearly as scandalous looking as you think.” He laughed quietly and nodded. Still a little nervous, he pushed up his glasses even though he was about to take them back off, anyways. Lup saw and shook her head at him and whispered “nerd”. And that time, Barry was able to laugh for real. 

 

“Okay, well um,” he gestured over to the blanket and sleeping bag. She pulled the robe and blanket off of her shoulders and wrapped them tight around herself as she crawled under Barry’s blanket. She immediately turned onto her side and tucked her head under the covers, cupping her hands over her face and blowing warm air into them.

 

“Ugh, my nose gets so damn cold.” 

 

Barry just looked at the Lup shaped lump in his little makeshift sleeping area for a second before gingerly lifting up the blanket on the other side and crawling in, being careful not to jostle her. He lied down on his back under the blanket, doing his best to leave some space between them. But then, she wormed her blanket-cocooned body backwards towards him  _ and it was so cute but now she was so close to him  _ and he was glad that she was turned around and with her head under the blanket because his eyes shot open wide and his breath stopped entirely and he had no idea how long he was like that. 

 

Once his brain was working again, he noticed that he could feel Lup shivering despite all the layers. She really was especially susceptible to the cold. Barry was warm again as soon as he had gotten back under the blanket and was feeling increasingly bad for Lup, hoping that his body heat would eventually reach her. 

 

He considered asking her something, and the lump in his throat grew so large that he didn’t know if he could get a word out even if he wanted to. He turned the question over and over, trying to imagine how it would come across, how exactly to word it, whether he should say it at all, what the worst possible outcome might be. Was it a kind gesture to a friend? Or a selfish maneuver? Was it creepy to ask, or was it rude not to offer -- his mind went blank and he blurted it out…

 

“Would it help if I held you?”  _ Don’t ramble don’t ramble don’t say anything else, don’t don’t don’t— _

 

_ “  _ Ohmigosh yes, a Barold Blanket, that would be de-lightful.” 

 

He had pulled off actually saying the words without sounding terrified --  _ amazing.  _ And fuck. She said yes and that meant that he actually had to do it and somehow not tremble or shake or implode. He softly took a deep breath, hoping she wouldn’t notice that he was steeling himself just to be able to touch her, through several layers of blankets no less. He rolled over and put an arm around her and tried not to die. She wormed herself back into him, even closer, and even though she was basically a triple-wrapped Lup burrito, he could feel her breathing and could feel the vague shape of her and it was enough to send his adrenaline soaring. He was grateful for the barrier of material between them so that she couldn’t feel his heart trying to escape his chest. His face grew fiercely warm and there was a dizzying lightness rising inside of him. He had never had such a full-bodied reaction from being close to someone like that. 

 

She sighed happily. “You really do run warm, Bear. Like a snuggly furnace.” Her voice was getting sleepy and soft and Barry was helplessly in love with the sound of it, with the moment, with... 

 

He found himself settling into a deep calm and smiling to himself, the lightness in his body going from nauseating to blissful. 

 

He knew right then that he would treasure that night for the rest of his life. 

 

***

 

Taako had been in a mood, and hadn’t done much outside of the ship that cycle. The three times in their journey where they got to be in a somewhat familiar, civilized and populated place over the past years left Taako feeling despondent once they left. It was hard to go back to desolation, to emptiness, to somewhere without the things that he enjoyed most; food, fashion, people, places, experiences, adventures, long nights out and early mornings walking through towns where everyone was still asleep. It was difficult starting to build attachments and making memories and just -- experiencing a place knowing that it would all be gone, or at least that they themselves would be gone, unable to ever stay anywhere for more than a year. But, it was also hard to live another cycle without the ability to do those things at all. No new faces, no new foods, no potential, no possibilities. He knew there was a lot out there to be found and explored in the worlds that didn’t have societies and there was always a lot to learn, but it was still, and probably always would be, rough for him. 

 

He had been spending a fair amount of time nose deep in books; he was at least going to hone whatever skills he could during the cycles where there was nothing for him to do. Well, he knew there were things to do, just not the things that interested him most, and he always had plenty of leftover time after his usual routines. He cooked constantly and had the laborious task of taking diligent inventory of their food supplies, calculating out how to preserve what they had, what things should be eaten first, what had longer shelf lives and how much storage room they had for taking supplies on to the next cycle. But, when it came to just random exploration and learning about whatever planet they were on, his heart wasn’t in it the way Lup’s and Barry’s were. Even if they were only there for a year, those two had a blast exploring even the simplest bits of life, taking notes on how everything worked and what things were made of and what the seasons and days and every time cycle was like; they could probably write several books on each planet they had landed on just from their observations. And Lucretia had her own writing, and her drawings of any plant or animal life to illustrate her writing. Davenport was always working on the ship, making sure everything was tuned and cleaned and perfect, and Magnus was extremely happy to forage and hunt, to be walking about patrolling and feeling the sense of protecting them that he got so much satisfaction from. And Merle was content to take any time off he could, or to just lounge and play games with Davenport; Taako got bored just looking at him and the way he spent his time. So he studied, and sometimes he would go out and find an empty area where he could practice magic, always learning more and fine tuning the spells he already knew to be more accurate, more efficient, bigger and better. 

 

The next time Magnus and Davenport decided to take an exploratory trek a little ways out into their surroundings, he had offered to go -- having not done much outside of the ship that cycle, he was feeling bad about his level of involvement, even though his aloof attitude didn’t show it. Besides, davenport and Magnus would need offensive magic in case shit went down, for sure. With Lup already gone on her expedition, or rather on her and  _ Barry’s  _ expedition, they didn’t have anyone else to depend on for offensive magic. There was Davenport’s illusory expertise, but that was a bit more on the defensive side. If they needed anything to get fucked up that Magnus’s muscles couldn’t take care of, they would need Taako. 

 

As they set out into the woods, Taako already had a bad feeling about things. But, everything felt bad and foreign and foreboding for them in every planet, and would be for forever. As they had seen, even the places that felt familiar and safe could turn on them in a moment’s notice and become dangerous in the most inexplicable and unexpected ways. Taako shuddered, thinking about Lup, and hoping that she was okay. They had checked in on their stones of farspeech only a couple of hours before, but that just meant that it would be a couple hours of him being uneasy until she checked in again. 

 

They found a network of paths and decided to pick one to follow; it was the first sign of what could possibly be something other than animal life on the planet. They were hoping to maybe find some sort of civilization that could help with supplies or in finding the light. There were more and more signs of life as they traveled further down the path that they chose. More wear and tear in the path, broken branches, inscriptions in the trees. They had been going for longer than they originally intended; they hadn’t expected to get a lead on anything promising and had mostly set out with the sole intention of just generally raising their awareness of their surroundings and to map out the area a bit. 

 

It was starting to get dark when they came upon a cave. Davenport made note of its location, hoping to come back and possibly explore it when it was lighter outside. Magnus was leaning over, trying to get a glimpse inside of it while staying on the path. As they continued, passing the cave, they stopped short at the sound of high pitched chattering. They all held their breath, listening. Magnus felt sure that it was coming from the entrance of the cave that they had just passed. Davenport listened closely to the cadence and rhythm of the chattering and was positive that it was a language. Taako felt a cold heaviness in his chest; this was going to be one of those times where things took a sudden turn for the worse. He could feel it coming. 

 

As they contemplated what to do next, they heard the chattering come closer. And before they had time to react, the sound exploded into screeches and guttural wailing. They readied themselves, assuming defensive stances, Taako with a small swirl of wind prepared in his hand, ready to release a powerful gust to push away any oncoming threat and give them that moment of space to assess what it was coming at them. But, before he even saw anything, he felt a numbing slap across his face, and then cold wetness running down his jaw. Still unable to see anything, he raised his hand to his cheek and felt the long, deep laceration that had been left there by whatever it was that had hit him. He drew his hand away and it was entirely covered with his own blood. From the corner of his eye, he caught a faint movement. Turning his head, he saw the trees in front of him -- shift. There was something in front of them that was causing them to be blurry or warped in waves. Taking a guess at what was going on, he was about to yell out to the others, only to feel that his injury was too grievous to speak and that he was becoming dizzy from blood loss. So, he hoped that he was right and he cast prestidigitation to send a spray of purplish ink in an arc in front of himself. Several vague, invisible shapes around them were showered with droplets of ink, making them visible for Magnus and Davenport. As they began to fight against the beings, Taako felt himself lose consciousness and slump to the ground. 

 

***

 

Taako’s eyes fluttered open as he heard voices calling to him. His vision was blurry and the blurriness wasn’t going away. He could just barely make out the faces of Magnus and Davenport hovering over him. He couldn’t understand anything that they were saying though, and he felt himself fading fast. The injury on the side of his face was not allowing him to open his mouth fully, but he managed to get the words he needed to say out of the corner of his mouth. 

 

“Help me. I don’t want to do this to Lup.” 

 

Davenport and Magnus had called for Merle who was supposed to be making his way to them. They had gotten a healing potion into Taako, but he had already lost so much blood. They watched as Taako’s eyes closed and didn’t open up again. Magnus carried his body as they headed back, tearful and silent. They found Merle’s body a little over halfway back, his ankle wrapped with a thorny vine, a sickly green sap oozing from the tips of the thorns. It was a trap that they had somehow managed to avoid on their way out. 

 

***

 

Barry and Lup returned to the news. Davenport didn’t give them more details than were necessary, not wanting to upset Lup with the graphic image of the injury that her brother had suffered, but went on to say that they took care of a fair number of the creatures. Magnus had the injuries to prove it. 

 

Barry’s mouth was slightly agape in shock, but he quickly gathered himself enough to look over at Lup. He had seen how losing Lup had affected Taako back in their fourth and ninth years, and he hadn’t been able to help him at all the first time, and then only barely the second. Lup’s face was blank. She turned her gaze down a bit and stared at the ground. 

 

“Thanks for fucking them up. Did…” she paused to swallow the lump forming in her throat, “...did you bury him?” 

 

“Yes,” Davenport had his hands in front of him, folded solemnly. “After we had gotten the best of a number of them, the rest left scared. Then we were able to move him a bit closer to the ship, and bury him properly. We -- buried them both when we came across Merle, since we weren’t able to travel back with both of their bodies, and because it was already almost dark.” 

 

Lup nodded, her lips pursed, staying strong in front of all of them, but Barry noticed her hands trembling slightly. She turned away and walked towards the entrance of the deck. Davenport and Magnus quietly started to walk off themselves, tired, beaten up, and downtrodden. Barry didn’t know what to do, but didn’t have to worry about it long as Lup stopped before going out the door to the deck. 

 

“Barry?” 

 

He turned towards her. “Yeah?” 

 

“Would you -- would you be okay with asking them how to get where he’s buried and taking me there?” 

 

“Yeah, of course Lup. I’ll ask them right now,” and he turned to go after Davenport and Magnus.

 

***

 

Barry hadn’t realized that Lup meant leaving right then. He was going to go with her no matter what, he knew that, but he was nervous about going there in the dark after all the talk of the danger that had been encountered out there earlier that day. Even though Magnus and Davenport had moved Taako a little bit closer and away from the cave, the graves were still not entirely out of the woods. But, he was ready to do whatever he was capable of doing to get Lup there and back safely. 

 

As they made their way out of the Starblaster and set on the course that Davenport had told him, Barry felt Lup’s hand slip into his. At first, his heart stopped, but then it sunk the second he could hear her start to cry. He had trouble seeing her face as they hadn’t fully left the dim circle of light emanating from the ship and therefore hadn’t cast a light spell yet, but there was only enough illumination to see where they were walking, not enough to fully see her face. He stopped and turned to her, holding on to the ends of her fingers still. 

 

“Lup…”

 

“No, no, no,” and she removed her hand to wipe at her eyes and then to motion like she was waving him on. “Let’s just keep going, I just want to get there, let’s keep going.” 

 

Barry squinted at her, trying to see her face to gauge the state she was in, but silently conceded and continued to walk. 

 

After several minutes of walking in silence, she hooked an arm through his and a few moments after that she had her face against his shoulder, trying to muffle her sobs into his robe while continuing to walk. 

 

Barry’s heart hurt for her; he was going to miss Taako as well, and was still in shock over the news, but Lup’s feelings and needs were immediate and pressing and he was consumed in anxious thoughts about what he could possibly do for her. 

 

He knew all he could do right then was take her where she needed to be. So he tightened the crook of his arm around hers and led them confidently while producing an orb of light with his other hand. 

  
  


***

 

Lup pushed herself to work hard for the rest of that year, to occupy all of her time with whatever project she could find, but everything she did was heavy with weariness. It was like she was moving through a thick fog; concentrating was impossible and her movements were slow. Barry did everything he could to distract her, finding them multitudes of projects to work on, teaching her a variety of things that she had asked about in the past and that he had been meaning to teach her. She would seem fine for a moment and then her gaze would become far away and Barry would know that she hadn’t heard the last few things he said. But, he pressed forward, and she seemed to be genuinely happy and distracted around him at least sometimes. 

 

On one of the nights where Barry was having trouble sleeping, he got up to get water and just to move around and clear his head for a moment. He saw one of the lights on in the common room. He went to investigate, being as quiet as possible and poking his head in through the door a bit first, not wanting to be seen in his sleep clothes. Peeking in, he saw Lup sitting on the couch, her legs folded up underneath her. Barry debated on whether or not to approach her and quickly, the desire to see her and talk to her won out over any doubts he had. 

 

Walking up to her, Barry noticed how deathly still she was, and even though he was a fairly noticeable presence, she didn’t seem to be aware of him. Barry realized that she was in trance; he had never seen her during it. And he wondered why she had decided to do so in the common room. Turning away, about to leave her alone, he heard her sigh. 

 

“Hi, Barry.”

 

“Oh uh, I’m sorry Lup, didn’t mean to wake you.”

 

“No it’s ok. I’ve been out for long enough, anyways.” 

 

Her speech was slow and strained and she paused for a long time. 

 

“Well uh… I’ll leave you be, Lup. Sorry again.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Barry was sure he heard disappointment in her tone. He didn’t want to assume — but he didn’t want to just leave her when it felt obvious to him that she was in need. 

 

“Unless… can I, umm. Do you want me to stay?” 

 

She didn’t look up at him, and her voice stayed quiet and monotone as she simply got out a small, hoarse “yes”.

 

Barry stepped over and sat next to her, unsure of what to do or say. All he knew how to do was be there, stay in proximity to her, be ready to try to siphon away her sadness if there was any way he could. 

 

“I can’t sleep in our room.” She exhaled, long and slow, as if she had been holding her breath for a long time. “I found one of his hairs on a pillow and I started melting down.” She finally turned to him and looked up into his eyes. “Death is just… still so heavy. Still so hard. Even if it isn’t permanent. It seems silly, it shouldn’t have the same meaning to us at all, but — my brother is still in the ground. And not here. And that’s all I can feel. And the future doesn’t seem tangible. All there is is right now, and right now, he’s not here.” 

 

Her posture loosened and she hunched over, her arms limply folding on her lap. Barry put an arm around her shoulders. 

 

“It’s not silly, Lup. You’re right; it is still death and it is still hard. I know that my feelings can’t possibly compare to yours, but I miss Taako, too. And I was — lost when you died. I couldn’t concentrate on anything.” 

 

She looked up into his eyes again. “Really?” 

 

“Of course,” and he gave her shoulders a squeeze. “You’re my best friend.”

 

They had both known that was true for a while, but it was the first time it had been said out loud. Lup seemed touched, even a bit emotional. She looked away from him and down at her hands. Her ears dropped and she closed her eyes and shifted her body weight up against Barry, leaning into his arm around her. They were both silent for what seemed like hours. But she was comfortable, and Barry was happy that she at least didn’t seem overwhelmed with grief for a bit. 

 

It was beginning to become light outside, and Barry heard someone shuffling through the kitchen. Lup stayed still though, and even though his instinct was to spring away from her and for both of them to act like everything was normal, like she wasn’t sad and like he wasn’t holding her -- he wasn’t about to do that to her.

 

It was Magnus who showed up, walking from the kitchen and into the common room. He was up early to go for a run as he often did before breakfast. Him and Barry caught each other’s eyes and Magnus just shot him a kindly smile and made his way outside. 

 

Not long after that, Lup shifted herself back upright, eyes turned downward, ears still drooping. Then she looked over at Barry, her expression full of gratitude. He felt the air sucked out of him as she looked deeply into his eyes; he felt seen by her in a way that he had never experienced before. She weakly formed a small smile, leaned over to hug him and simply said, “thanks,” into his ear before getting up and returning to her room. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazing fanart by Dorkryptos on tumblr for the scene of Lup sleeping next to Barry <3!
> 
> https://dorkryptos.tumblr.com/post/184635153583/jortsman-i-could-not-stop-thinking-about-this


	12. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year twelve

 

It was hot. And muggy. They were all miserable.

 

The planet was nothing but desert and ocean, and the heat was indescribably oppressive, humid, and salty. After spending some time outside, Barry went in and felt almost like there was a film on his arms; a quickly drying layer of salty mist. Despite the miserable conditions, it was a beautiful place with towering columns of wind torn rock in all shades of reds and grays, riddled with holes and worn rough from wind and sand. Some pieces almost resembled large structures of coral, standing alien like across a barren, waterless land. Barry had been collecting various types of sand and brittle rock in as many differing levels of coarseness as he could find, hoping to test their safety and possibly use them as part of a water filtration system he was working on. In the current world, all they had to do was desalinate the water, but Barry knew an opportunity when he saw one. The variety of sand and rock available there could make for a good filtration system in future cycles if needed -- they might not be able to depend on all of the equipment in the ship forever.

 

They had seen the light fall, far far in the distance. And the planet was huge. It was huge and it was the same environment over the entirety of it. Half ocean and half desert, almost perfectly divided; one entire side of the planet was the sea and the other was neverending sand. They traveled along the line of where the two environments met so that they could stay near their water source.

 

Barry had been on his own for most of the time during the five months they had spent on the planet so far. Lup was hesitant to go out on any expeditions with him at all after the year prior, and he didn’t blame her. It was traumatic coming back from their trek to receive the news of what had happened. She was justifiably afraid of leaving and coming back to that news again. And to be fair, there wasn’t all that much to do. Davenport would fly them a ways toward where they saw the light, and then they would stop for a few days so that Barry could assist with triangulating and mapping the area as best as he could. It was difficult work with there being so few landmarks or differences in the landscape. After exploring the area, they would pick up and fly a bit further, stop and rest and search and then repeat the process. It was beginning to feel like a lost cause, but at least there didn’t seem to be much life on the planet to lose. It was grim, having to put things into perspective like that. It was still an entire planet, existing within an entire plane. A plane that they knew would just -- cease to be if they didn’t find a light that fell from the sky. It was such an absurd situation to think of out of context -- or even in context. But it was their life. It was what they were living, year after year.

 

***

 

Back in the lab, Barry was still overheating from the time he spent outside and was feeling uncomfortable. But at least he had Lup with him. She was helping him with desalinating more water for their reserves, and he was trying to focus on their work instead of being self-conscious about his disheveled appearance. He took off his glasses to wipe away sweat and instead he winced.

 

“What’s wrong?” He had hoped Lup didn’t see, but of course she did.

 

Still with his eyes closed, looking frustrated with himself, he sighed, “Some hair was stuck in the hinge of my glasses.”

 

Lup laughed. “Oh, Barold. Come with me, nerd.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the lab, and he allowed himself to be pulled without question, even though he was confused and flustered by her hand grasping his.

 

She took him down the hall and as they approached the door, he realized that she was taking him to her room. He had never stepped foot in her room before and didn’t know what to expect. His heart was thudding against the inside of his ribcage as she opened the door, still holding on to his hand. And she led him in.

 

The room was chaotic; her and Taako’s clothes were everywhere, their bedding assembled like a nest, several paper airplanes scattered on the floor in the corner of the room furthest from the bed, and drawings and pictures taped all over the walls. There was a chair pulled over to another corner that seemed to be there so that they could hang a string of tealights from the ceiling; but they had only gotten halfway through the process. Despite being cluttered, it was all very charming and pretty and Barry drank in every detail that he could make out as she led him through the room. He caught sight of a couple of her bras slung over a chair and blushed, immediately averting his eyes to his feet and unintentionally holding his breath for some unknown reason.

 

She led him over to their dresser which doubled as a vanity with a large mirror across the top of it and an ornate chair in front. She let go of his hand and opened a drawer where they had an array of hair supplies. Reaching in, she quickly found what she was looking for; a small pair of golden scissors. She pulled the chair back and gestured to Barry.

 

“Take a seat, Barold. Let’s take care of that mop of yours!”

 

Hesitating for a moment while he unfroze, he wordlessly sat in the chair, overwhelmed with looking over the walls near the dresser, trying to observe and catalog every item to file away in the spot in his mind that had become reserved for Lup. There were so many of her drawings haphazardly taped on the wall, and an array of pictures of her and Taako. Everything from them wearing their most dramatic outfits together, posing outside of a stone building at night, to the two of them wearing baggy shirts with their hair loose and making the worst possible faces that they could, most of them with their tongues sticking out. Every single thing in the room filled him with more and more adoration for her until it was too much and just sitting there, he felt breathless and weak, as if he had been running for miles.

 

She didn’t notice how quiet he was being or how wide his eyes were as he took in everything he could, commiting the little artifacts of Lup to memory. She went to work on his hair, gently trimming away at it, taking small bits at a time, being careful to maintain everything that was so Barry-like about his hair while still taking it back enough so that he wasn’t catching it in his glasses. He saw himself in the mirror and was overwhelmed with the image; him, in close proximity to her. She was there, touching him in small, gentle ways, her eyes completely focused on the task in front of her. He watched as she ran her fingers through his hair, evaluating where to trim next. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the miraculous image of the two of them occupying the same space. He wondered if they would ever have the opportunity to take a picture together, if that was something that she would even do with him. As his eyes wandered back to the collage of Lup all over the walls, he felt her arms slip over his shoulders and around him. Her hands clasped each other across his chest, and she leaned down to rest her chin on his shoulder as she embraced him. He looked to the mirror and saw that her eyes were closed. And there it was again, the image in front of him where they occupied the same space together, but now she was touching him fully, laying her head on him, her face next to his, almost pressing cheek to cheek. He was all at once filled with a burning heat that the image sent shooting through him, but also a sense of dismay at how unrealistic it looked. Her delicate features, her softness, next to his rough visage with stubble and messy hair.

 

Her. Next to him. It was impossible.

 

After a moment of resting against his shoulder, her arms around him and her eyes still closed, she softly spoke.

 

“Thank you for being there for me. Last year. When Taako… was gone.”

 

He hesitated. Then started to raise his hand up, faltered, but finally made his way to settling his hand on top of where hers were clasped against him. He gave her a reassuring squeeze.

 

“Of course. Any time, Lup. I’m here for you.”

 

*******

 

And just a few years ago, when he realized that he --

 

When he _realized_ . He had only thought about all that he couldn’t do for her. How small he was in her wake. Inconsequential. But earlier, she had thanked him for doing something for her. He had helped her through something hard. And before that she had _needed_ him to keep her warm. Something so simple. That anyone could have done. He just happened to be the one there -- but, still. He was there . For _her_.

 

That night in his bed for a few minutes before he drifted off, he thought about what he might be able to do for her if things were perfect, if he were his best self. He let his imagination take over and told himself it was okay, just for a little bit. His thoughts were his and only his and it was okay, right?

 

He thought about her leaning on him, needing him, wanting him close by. About him being capable, being able to hold her and have her feel safe because of it. It was laughable. But he tried, he tried so hard to let himself have that thought for a moment, to let it fill him, surround him, and to fight off the doubt, the negativity, the punishment that he laid on himself for thinking that way. She obviously didn’t need anyone but herself to feel safe. Especially not him. She could save his ass a million times over -- and anyone else’s for that matter. But, those things he wanted, it was all only inside his imagination, and it was harmless to imagine. _Let yourself have this, just let yourself think about it, for a moment._

 

Holding her. Feeling strong. Feeling her melt against him. Knowing that she felt safe. That she could let go for a bit, be calm, let down her guard, let him take care of everything. Let him take care of _her_. Just as he was losing his grip on wakefulness and was being pulled into the hazy calm of sleep, he thought that if that were ever possible, if that could ever happen, even for a single minute... he would never need anything else. He could be sustained for his entire life, he could survive anything. It would be a greater feeling than any other accomplishment he had ever had.

  


***

 

“Fuck! Yes! Lup!”

 

Taako and Lup were taking advantage of the desolate nature of their home for the year to practice some of their more destructive spells. Out a ways from the ship, in the waves of sand and towers of rock, they stood side by side sending all manner of combative magical energy careening away from them towards far off rocks and hills of sand. Lup had just let loose a jet of fire so daunting and powerful that it nearly vaporized a column of sand-pecked rock. The spray of red and gray powder that jettisoned from where the rock once stood created a gorgeous, firework-like effect. Lup looked down at her hands with satisfaction; one of the good things about regeneration was being able to be a little bit more fast and loose with her arcane power. She already had fairly prominent calluses on her hands and old scars from burns, but she had normally felt the need to be careful with the amount of power that she used. She was unsure of what kinds of injuries could be possible if she released too much power at once, and her hands were her weapons after all -- she couldn’t risk destroying them. But with the promise of regeneration, she could really let loose and test her limits. She hadn’t found the cap-off point yet where she actually caused herself irreparable harm, which was good for her to know. She began to practice at getting even bigger and more powerful. There were some burns and scars developing around her hands and sometimes even a little ways up her wrist. She looked over her calloused and scarred hands with some spots that were even a bit blackened here and there, and felt proud. There was something about well-worked hands that she loved. They showed that you had been _doing_ things, accomplishing something, working with passion; they showed her dedication to her craft. She had never wanted to have perfect, soft hands; she genuinely loved the chipped nails and the imperfections across her skin. It was the sacred mark of her power and of her diligence in improving that power.

 

In the lab later with Barry, she noticed his hands. He had lots of little imperfections as well, like the noticeable callous on the inside of his middle finger because of how hard he held pens and pencils while writing (and he wrote a _lot_ ). There were all sorts of little scars from cuts and burns; the collateral damage of working in a lab. His fingers were rough and his nails cut short and the string thin scars scattered on his hands were like decorations. She would never have thought before that someone who spent so much time reading and running science experiments would have tough looking hands. Actually, on paper, Barry sounded like such a soft, sheltered person. But he was strong and he was experienced and he worked hard outside and inside. And, like the rest of them, he had endured a lot and was being forged in a fire side by side with them all.

 

She thought back to the time where she found him crying. She knew that he was embarrassed about it, and had seemed to go back to being more apologetic and shy again ever since then. She knew that he had an issue with feeling like he was weak or not as capable as the others; in fact, she was noticing that he was specifically _very_ self conscious on that topic. But she didn’t think he was weak at all. It wasn’t like she hadn’t cried, and she was sure everyone else had their individual breakdowns at some point. He was able to actually show it and talk about it, though. He let her approach him, and he told her all of his fears and worries. And that was something that she considered to be strong. She had a hard time talking about her own fears; it was so much easier to laugh things off, to pretend like everything was okay. But Barry didn’t take the easy way out of things. She found herself admiring more and more about him every year and was always finding new ways to appreciate him.

 

And he really was strong; not Magnus strong, but definitely more than he gave himself credit for. She had noticed his strength when he was holding her on their camping trip; there were a couple of times while he was sleeping and she was restless and awake where she felt his arm tighten around her, and despite what he referred to as “extra padding” she could sense the musculature and the strength in his grasp on her. She had felt so cozy being held by him, and it was exactly the warmth and comfort that she needed to be able to get any rest in that cold weather.

 

Her thoughts were interrupted by Barry asking for something. She shook her head and asked him to repeat himself.

 

“Oh uh, the timer? Where were we at?”

 

“Oh yeah, sure,” she picked up the timer from her end of the table and read the face. “Oof, only halfway.”

 

“Wow, okay. Got so wrapped up over here, thought a lot more time passed.”

 

She set the timer back down on the desk and caught sight of her hands as she did. Some burns were fresh and made touching anything slightly painful. As she regarded her tender hands, Barry noticed.

 

“Learn anything new? Or just practicing what you know?”

 

“Hah, just getting bigger and better with the old standbys this last week. Pretty sure I’ve pulverized my hands.”

 

Barry looked at her hands thoughtfully, and for some reason it made Lup’s heart skip.

 

“I like how they look. It’s like a manifestation of your hard work.” He grinned and raised up his own hands, turning them over and laughing a little as he did. “I’ve always liked beat up hands. They’ve got character.” Lup’s face slowly lit up with a smile that reached into some place that she could almost physically feel in her heart. They really were best friends; he just ‘got’ her. It wasn’t a connection she had ever experienced with anyone other than her brother. She was truly happy to have that sort of connection with Barry, her incredibly sweet friend that had become so dear to her.  

 

***

 

Barry had been feeling especially bad about himself that year. The obviousness of how small he was in the grand scheme of things was oppressively evident to him being on a planet where there was so little for him to do. There wasn’t much to do for anyone else, either, but Barry didn’t notice that. He only noticed how useless he felt and was spiraling into an anxious, self-defeating cycle of putting himself down while simultaneously thinking about everyone else’s more useful qualities.

 

In the sun room he was looking over the plants; he missed the sight of living things, of greenness. Merle walked in and could tell right away that Barry was in some sort of state.

 

“What’s wrong there, buddy?”

 

“Oh hey, Merle. Not much just uh -- this isn’t the best year. Heat and all that.”

 

Merle carefully looked over Barry and decided that what he was saying was bullshit. Barry’s face gave away that he was carrying some sort of heaviness, and it was no great secret among the crew that the guy struggled with a lot of self doubt. The stuttering, the apprehension, and the general difficulty in speaking and engaging made that evident. He had definitely changed and had been getting much better and more comfortable, but bad habits are hard to break.

 

“You know, when we let negative thoughts run our lives, then all we’ll have is negativity and it becomes your only friend. You’ve got to be your own friend and take care of yourself and let yourself take care of you.”

 

Barry smiled from the corner of his mouth and lightly exhaled out of his nose in an almost- laugh. It was kind of garbled nonsense, but he got where Merle was going with it. And it was sweet, and it was true.

 

“Yeah, Merle. That’s good advice.” He looked down at the dwarf who was intently looking up at him, hands resting on the top of the planter in front of him. “Thanks for that. Really.” Merle gave him a twinkling smile in response.

 

“You want to have a drink together, bud?”

 

“Heh. Yeah, why not,” and Barry led the way into the kitchen.

 

***

 

Barry was motivated. Instead of falling prey to his own abuse, he was going to let his insecurities push him forward. If he was feeling shit about himself, _he was going to do something about it._ There was no point in wallowing and just feeling worse and worse. He was going to push everyone away if he kept doing that. He was going to push Lup away.

 

Barry thought about what he could do. And he quickly decided where to start.

 

He found Taako on the deck, soaking up the sun, somehow seeming comfortable in the heat. Barry could already feel himself overheating just walking from the door to where Taako stood on the deck, arms hanging over the railing, looking into the distance.

 

“Hey there, Taako.”

 

“Hello, Barold. What can I do for ya, my man?” Taako lazily turned to the side to look at Barry, one forearm still resting across the top of the railing.

 

“I was uh -- wondering if I could ask for a favor? If you have the time, that is.”

 

“Well, you tell me what it is and I’ll tell you if I’ve got the time.”

 

“I was wondering if maybe, uhh. If you could maybe teach me some spells? I mean, I know _some_ things pretty well, but they’re all kind of more like -- utility things, I guess? Not so much offensive stuff. And, with going out so much and never knowing what we’re going to run into, I uh just -- it just seems like a good idea to maybe pick up some skills that would be useful in case of uh -- if anyone needs help, I guess.”

 

“Sure, I get it. You want to join the rank of the badasses. You’ve come to the right guy.” Taako noticed the sweat already collecting on Barry’s brow. “You sure you’re not gonna keel over if we spend too long outside? Because I can’t really teach you how to blow shit up inside the ship. Cap'nPort might burst a blood vessel.”

 

“Uh. Well, maybe we could shoot for the evenings, if that would be okay?”

 

“I’m into it. Say, after dinner?”

 

“Yeah. That would be great. Thanks. Um. I don’t mean to come out here just to ask you for stuff, I’d want to talk more but it’s --”

 

“I get it Barold, get yourself inside before you melt. I’ll see you around.”

 

Barry smiled gratefully and gave him a small nod before heading back inside. Taako watched him leave then turned back to stare out into the vast expanse of desert that stretched out in front of him. He couldn’t help but smile a little bit to himself. He had a feeling of what that was all about -- some of it at least was because of Barry’s constant worry about his shortcomings, for sure. But another part of it was almost definitely because Barry wanted to protect his sister. And that made him happy.

  


***

 

Davenport had just landed them at their next hop, and Barry was getting his stuff together so that he could go out at sunset and start the process of searching the area, one long hike at a time. He made himself an early dinner; a couple of sandwiches because he wasn’t even about to try anything that might risk leaving the kitchen a mess before Lup and Taako got in there to cook for the crew. He hated skipping dinner with them, but setting out at the top of the evening was the only way he was going to be able to cover any ground without dying. It also meant that he would be missing out on practicing spellcasting with Taako for the next couple of days.

 

On his way out the door, Magnus followed after him.

 

“Mind if I join you on this one?”

 

“Oh. Uh, I don’t want you to miss dinner. Besides, it’s been pretty boring here. It’s just going to be a lot of walking in one direction.”

 

“I don’t mind! I’ll have someone to keep me company.” Magnus landed a friendly, firm pat on Barry’s back before heading out the door and down the ramp of the Starblaster.

 

As they walked, Magnus had his head tilted towards the sky, contemplating the stars. “You ever think about what we’d be doing by this time on our home world?”

 

“Uh. Sometimes, I guess.” Barry had actually thought about it a lot, but not always in the best context. He already felt sure that Magnus was going to talk about something positive and he didn’t want to sour the conversation within minutes of them setting out. Mostly, he thought about how he would be nearing sixty and probably doing exactly the same thing as before. He loved his job, that was a given, but he had no real connections, no family to speak of, and only a few co-workers that could have been loosely described as friends. Definitely more like acquaintances, and barely even that. Everyone he had worked with were similarly dedicated to their jobs and were generally isolated people. There had only ever been a few outings, mostly just lunches in between work. Nothing miraculous, nothing life changing would have ever happened to him. He would be in the same place, doing the same thing until his body or mind gave out on him.

 

“I guess it’s nice to have had this long with my body as it is -- who knows, I might have let myself go in my thirties.” Magnus laughed, but not in the usual lighthearted Magnus sort of way. There was a little bit of sadness he was repressing in there, somewhere. “And damn -- you’re already old enough to be my dad. You probably would have been close to retiring and kicking back by now!”

 

Barry was silent for a moment. “I mean, I would still be a few years away from that.”

 

Magnus was immediately apologetic. “Ah shit, Barold, sorry. That was probably kind of rude. It’s not that I think of you as super old or anything! I just -- I guess my idea of age is off? Especially with all this. It’s weird to think of how old I would be and I guess, how old I technically am? But at the same time, I’m not, you know?”

 

“It’s okay, Magnus. In relation to everyone else, I think I’m the furthest along into my expected lifespan, so I probably look ancient to you all,” he forced a chuckle. He was still determined to not let the conversation steer towards the negative with them being barely five minutes into what would be an hours long walk. “But age doesn’t really have the same meaning for us right now, I guess. It’s nice to have all this time to learn, though; it’s like we got to put  life on pause while we get better and better at things. Kind of neat when you think about it.”

 

“Yeah!” Magnus’s mood bounced back. “It is frustrating not being able to get even more in shape, though. Any training I do throughout the year -- well, I just go back to the same sized muscles at the end,” he rubbed the back of his neck and smiled wide at Barry.

 

“That would be frustrating I guess. So, uh -- why do you still train so much every year, then?”

 

“Well, it’s what I do, first off. I like it! And I still at least make some progress for that year. And even if it resets, if I can be even a little bit better and stronger for part of that year, that’s not something I’m going to just skip out on, you know? That little bit could be the difference between saving someone or not.” He puffed out his chest a bit and thoughtfully looked into the distance. “What else is there to do other than be my best?”

 

Barry was silent, but smiling. Magnus was such a good, pure person. And he felt inspired by his words. Why do anything other than try to be his best? Isn’t that what he wanted? So, instead of lamenting over feeling like he was coming short, he decided that he was going to try and be more like Magnus and just simply work at being better. Maybe throwing himself into that would help keep the negativity and self-loathing at bay. Maybe him working to be his best each year could someday be the difference between him being able to be there for Lup or not. Magnus spoke up, interrupting his thoughts.

 

“You know Barry; you’re a really good guy.”

 

Barry laughed softly. “I was just thinking the same thing about you. Ya beat me to saying it out loud.”

 

Magnus chuckled with Barry, a wide grin forming on his face. “I really mean it. You’re always so nice to everyone. And, when I saw you with Lup after Taako had died, well. That was very sweet. I could tell that she would have been a lot worse off without your support.”

 

“Gee, uh… thanks, Magnus. That’s really good to hear. I -- I had hoped that I was able to be of some help.”

 

Magnus pat Barry firmly on the back and laughed his hearty, signature Magnus laugh. “Of course you were. I think all I’ve ever seen you do is help. That’s why I like you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**_Interlude_ **

Barry couldn’t focus.

 

He was alone, sitting at the workspace in his room, trying to get some research done. He was looking over a couple of books that he had picked up back in their tenth year that he hadn’t had the time to fully dig into yet. One was a deep dive into advanced botany, which was something he was fairly well versed in, but that wasn’t necessarily his area of expertise. It would definitely be a good subject to be better educated in for their travels. The other book was a huge tome of ancient lore and past religions. It would probably lead to nothing, being that it belonged to a planet that they would never be able to return to. But Barry thought that if there was even the potential that it could inspire a line of thought regarding the light or the Hunger, it would be worth reading. It helped that it was extremely interesting as well; he felt more like it was a book he would read for fun or just to pass the time. But he took notes, and he wrote freeform ideas based on concepts presented in the book; that had always been one of his go-to strategies that he used to try and spark revelations or to form theories. He had always been a bit more haphazard and creative in his approach than his colleagues at the institute had been. The logical and straightforward methods worked fine for things that were already known, but Barry firmly believed that to discover something new and to make breakthroughs, you had to let your mind loose a bit and trust that it would lead you to something.

 

On that particular night though, try as he might, he couldn’t engage in that practice the way he normally was able to. His mind was so full that it moved sluggishly. Everything was in a fog except for one spot of dazzling clarity and brightness: Lup. He could conjure her face with every detail perfectly accounted for. He could hear her voice, he could envision her facial expressions and what they all meant. He knew… so much about her. More than he had ever known about anyone. But she still seemed a million miles away from him. He knew that his internal file on her wasn’t of any real significance or surprise when she was -- Lup. Who wouldn’t be entranced by her? Who wouldn’t instantly love her and file away every single thing they noticed about her? She was amazing; bright, vivacious, attention grabbing. She couldn’t exist in a room without being the focal point, even if she were silent, motionless. She radiated an energy that was just -- so unique to her. An energy that no one else had or could even hope to emulate. And he had reached a point where he could imagine and feel that energy. Even without her present, he could feel it.

 

His heartbeat had spiraled entirely out of his control and he felt like it was tracing her shape through varying levels of intensity in its palpitations. It was like a paragraph in morse code that spoke out her design to him; a perfectly alternating pounding that matched the waves of her hair, fluttering along her ears, an incredibly palpable solitary beat at her eyes, dropping entirely at her lips, skipping at those lips turning into a smile.

 

Home wasn’t just far away -- it was gone. Unstitched out of the fabric of reality, the thread unceremoniously ripped apart and then dissolved. And even then, there hadn’t been a place that really fit the word ‘home’ for him since he was a child. Everything after that had been a habitat, a dwelling; simply a place to go to for sleeping and eating and silence and a tolerated and almost welcomed loneliness. The word home hadn’t been part of his vocabulary for thirty nine years and it was never even a concept that he felt he was really missing or in need of. But he was starting to feel like the ship was his home; and it was because of Lup. Despite finding himself in a place where the word home was beginning to fit, his heart was heavy. He couldn’t stop thinking of wanting to go home, to her; _she_ was home. Wanting desperately to feel the sensation of complete surrender, of being tangled in her arms, of being surrounded by her and surrounding her himself. _That_ would be home. And he was as close as he would ever be, with it just beyond his reach. He was brushing up against home, sharing long hours with home near him, desperately trying not to get caught longingly looking at the windows of home, wishing that he could be there. In her heart. That was home.  

 

He tried over and over to read the same sentence from the book sitting in front of him. To write anything down. It was impossible. His heart alternated between waves of affection and longing, to abysmal realization -- to contentment of her even being in the world, to a swift rising when he thought of how lucky he was to know her at all. And then falling back down to a placid and languid feeling of longing, but a type of  longing that was unaware of its own impossibility. Just... the platonic ideal of longing, with no other emotion attached; no words, no thoughts at all. A longing that ached down to the bone. A longing that could do nothing other than ache.

 

He conjured every memory he could, still looking at the page in front of him, but his vision out of focus. Holding her in the tent. Holding her on the couch. Her hugging him from behind. He treasured each of those moments, and was elated at the mere thought of them, but he kept cycling through feelings of terror and guilt. Those moments meant so much more to him than they did to her, and that felt unfair -- maybe even a little bit wrong. He was getting something out of those touches that she was unaware of, and what if it would be uncomfortable for her if she knew what it all meant to him? What if she found out someday, and upon realizing that it meant something else to him... what if she got upset about all the times they had touched? What if she thought that he had purposely orchestrated the scenarios in some way, or that he had manipulated her into giving him her attention? He felt dread that somehow he would be found out and that the reaction would be anger and shock, and that he would realize that those feelings, the feelings that felt so pure and good and blissful, were actually beyond inappropriate, something that he should be ashamed of.

 

He gave up on trying to read and went to bed early, but sleep didn’t come easily. His thoughts lingered on the camping trip where they had shared a tent. It was nothing to her, just a platonic comfort that she needed. But he thought about it frequently -- another source of guilt for him, knowing that it had probably never crossed her mind again. He let himself slip into a sleepy, peaceful state with closed eyes where he tried to recreate that moment in his head, to summon the emotions that he felt that night while holding her, to remember every time where he woke up for a few seconds to the realization that his arm was wrapped around her, and falling back to sleep with a serene, floating happiness like he had never felt before.

 

***

 

He woke up with a start only a few hours later, sightless in the dark without his glasses, his heart pounding and his chest tight. He felt around next to him in panic, pulling back the blanket trying to find something. After just a handful of seconds, he realized where he was and that his incredibly vivid dream had only been just that; a dream. It felt so real. She had just been in his arms. He had just been lost, floating in a wave of contentment as he listened to her breathing. Within his dream, he started falling asleep to the rhythm of it. But he woke up instead. And she wasn’t there. And for a moment, he was so disoriented and lost that it impacted his emotions in such a sudden and visceral way that it felt like a punch to the gut. There was no going back to sleep.

 

Groggy and filled with a strange emptiness, he walked shakily into the kitchen for water. He thought he might also go out to the deck, to look at the stars like he had done that one time with Lup; it was a thoroughly relaxing and peaceful way to pass the time. As he wandered from the kitchen towards the deck, he hoped that he would see her stirring around in the night as she often did. It was the first time he was anticipating her, rather than being caught unaware and surprised by her sudden presence. Every corner he turned, his adrenaline would rise just a bit at the feeling that he was about to see her. But she wasn’t around. He ended up on the deck alone.

 

He leaned against the railing and stared skyward. It was actually really pleasant outside there at night; it felt about room temperature and there was just the slightest breeze. It was deathly silent aside from the sound of gentle waves sweeping over the infinite sand. His mind went blank for a bit, completely absorbed in the vast darkness of the sky interrupted by hundreds of pinpoints of light, the feel of the faint wind on his forearms and face, the smell of wet salt, the sound of ceaselessly moving water.

 

He gradually came back in from nowhere and thoughts began stirring in his head once again. He wondered what Lup thought about when she would go out there and look at the stars. He wondered about everything that Lup thought, curious about the patterns and contents of her mind, all of the words and musings so deep within that they would only ever be known to her.

 

For the next hour that he spent out on the deck, just him and the darkness, all he could think about as his eyes poured over the stars was her.

And home.

And her.


	13. The Protector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year thirteen

Even with scheduled repetition, it hadn’t become any less surreal. They could be anticipating its exact moment of arrival, but... it was still always a shock when it happened. Feeling the temperature drop, watching the sky darken, seeing the color get sucked out of everything. Then, it would appear -- the massive cloud so dark that it siphoned away all light, but somehow had also trapped every color that existed within its tar, all swirling around inside of itself. Its massive form bubbled like lava, its surface popping and sending out little threads of tendrils before, as always, the columns shot down and connected with the planet’s surface. And every time, that was when it was over. That was the signal for their panicked and desperate departure. 

 

Sometimes, they couldn’t wait for the year to be over so that they could leave. They were growing to desperately need each other more and more each year and having one of them missing for any amount of time was like missing a piece of themselves. Their group was becoming its own entity, and it just wasn’t  _ right  _ when one of them was gone. 

 

Merle was starting to make a habit out of dying though, and that year was no exception -- they had only been there for a week before he, once again, died while swimming. It was obvious that swimming was something that he loved to do, but maybe wasn’t so great at. To be fair, the conditions they found themselves in on those doomed worlds weren’t always familiar, so it was easy to fall prey to the different-ness of it all. But, he had only just left them a month before the end of the previous year as well, again by swimming and being swept out who knows how far into the ocean-half of the last planet. Even though he had far exceeded everyone else’s death count already, they still mourned him when they lost him and he was still missed terribly. There was an undertone of annoyance at losing their cleric so early in the year, but they would be able to air their grievances when he returned and they could give him a tough time in between hugs and welcome-back-drinks. 

 

***

 

Their new planet was mostly water -- maybe even ninety percent water. It was dotted with only a small handful of flat, slate gray islands made almost entirely of rock. But, rock that was soft looking -- it had the appearance of being soaked through, like if you touched the rock surface it would be cold and damp, porous and water-logged. But it was all actually quite dry and warm to the touch. The islands were mostly more like plateaus; very few of them actually sloped down to meet the water and most of them were large expanses of land that jutted straight upward out of the water instead, like pedestals. They had landed on one such plateau and despite the lack of greenery and the overall desolate appearance of the planet, they found and connected with a small village of people living on the large slab. The villagers showed the crew how they collected edible plant matter from the surrounding ocean as well as their method of fishing using multiple lines extending out from the sprawling branches of the few scattered trees with roots that ran over and twisted in between the cracks of rocks. They adorned the lines with little shards of stone arranged like chimes to alert whoever was on fishing shift when something was on the line. 

 

Lup was up in the branches of one of the cliff side, wind-battered trees where she was gracefully draped along the upper branches, looking comfortable lounging in an impossible position. Taako and Magnus sat at the base of the tree overlooking the cliff, watching the tiny sun of the planet set beyond the dark green water’s edge. Sunset was supposed to be the best time for catching fish, so Taako and Magnus chatted as they waited, ready to start pulling in lines. Lup was just resting, though -- as soon as she had seen the branches, she knew she could find a way to be comfortable in them. She had set her mind on that being her spot for the next couple of hours, idly dipping in and out of conversation with Magnus and Taako while leaning back and drinking in the rapidly changing sky through the sparse branches overhead. 

 

A knocking noise rang out at the base of the tree right behind Taako, causing him to jump and gasp mid-sentence while talking to Magnus. Lup just laughed, having already seen it coming -- she had stretched and looked around just in time to see Barry making his way towards them from the small village. They caught each other’s eyes, and he put a finger up to his lips in a ‘hush’ gesture, and smiled. She winked at him, then leaned back into her relaxed position up in the branches of the tree. 

 

“The fuck!?” Taako turned and looked up at Lup, laughing from her perch, then he turned to see Barry approaching the tree and cursed under his breath. “I thought it wouldn’t have to be said that part of me teaching you shit would be that you could not pull pranks on me involving said shit I am teaching you,  _ Barold _ .” Magnus started laughing as soon as he realized what was happening; that Taako teaching Barry ‘knock’ earlier that day had backfired on him already. 

 

Lup slid out of the tree and to the ground, all at once graceful and clumsy, slowed by the sleepiness building in her body, and landed on the ground in front of Barry as he was walking over. Taako was still fuming but his angry stare on Barry was interrupted by his sister landing in between the two of them. 

 

Barry smiled with Lup suddenly centered in his line of sight, looking relaxed and happy and still softly giggling from the prank. A large part of him gathering the courage to do something like that was from her direct influence -- and also partly from knowing that she would find it funny and that he would get to see her luminous smile.

 

“Hey, Barold. Haven’t seen you all day.” She noticed his face go from gleaming to pensive -- he was happy to see her, she could see that. But then it was like something shifted, like he had suddenly remembered something. She regarded him carefully, trying to parse what his expression meant. He seemed anxious, which was typical. But, she couldn’t tell for sure what else was going on there; there was something, and it was starting to bother her. She was going to figure it out. 

 

“H-hey, Lup.” Barry rubbed the back of his neck and smiled weakly. She continued to examine him and his face dropped while predictably turning crimson. He struggled to say something, to ask what was going on, why was she looking at him like that, why wasn’t she saying anything, why—

 

“ _ Excuse me, Barold,”  _ Taako cleared his throat, instantly  bored of watching the two awkwardly stare each other down. Barry turned to Taako and his confused expression went back to smiling. 

 

“Sorry about that, teach. Couldn’t help it.” 

 

Lup’s concern grew. That was  _ her  _ best friend, barely able to talk to her but then turning around and talking calmly and casually with Taako.  _ Taako _ who had been mercilessly teasing Barry even more than normal lately.

 

“There wasn’t even anything to open or unlock,” Taako scoffed at Barry. “You think it’s funny to use magic all willy nilly? I thought I taught you better than that.”

 

“Taako,” Barry started. “I saw you make Davenport think his mustache was gone when he was drunk after Merle’s wake.”

 

“First, I was bored, second, I’ve earned the right to waste magic like that.”

 

“You’re implying that magic is a finite resource?” Barry smirked, though still with a hint of nervousness, being unsure of how far he could actually pull off joking with Taako. 

 

“I’m about ten seconds from making your  _ ass  _ a finite resource on this planet for the rest of the year, Bluejeans; if you think I won’t blast you into the ocean for sassing me,  _ you have got another thing coming.”  _

 

***

Magnus had been incredibly happy connecting with the people of the village; they survived off of hunting and gathering and were grateful for Magnus’s help and strength. In exchange for his assistance, they showed the crew their tactics for survival and how they collected and created all of their supplies. When the crew took the Starblaster over to another one of the plateaus that was uninhabited and came back to the village laden with the materials and foods that they had showed them how to find and gather, they were ecstatic and even more accepting of the crew than before. Magnus was of course also having fun with the children of the village, who had taken to following him everywhere as he found ways to make their chores into games and adventures for them. 

 

Lup watched from the deck as a trail of children gleefully followed Magnus with buckets of water into the village. In the distance, she could see Taako working with Barry. She was waiting on them to be done with what had become their daily routine so that she, Davenport, and Barry could continue on to their work for the day of flying, triangulating, and searching for the light. As she leaned back in the deck chair, she thought about the previous day and Barry’s obvious shift in comfort once he had gotten up close to her. Something was strange about their interactions, or at least just different than usual. She thought that maybe she had been putting a lot of emotional strain on him lately; he was already worried about so much and also dealing with death in his own ways, and she had leaned pretty heavily on him for support in the year that Taako died, and then had continued to voice some of her fears and residual feelings to him in the year after. That was probably not something he was used to, and she could understand that maybe that would sap him of a lot of his social and emotional energy. 

 

It was probably best to give him a little space, let him recharge. He was also practicing spell casting with Taako pretty heavily, and that had to have also been exhausting. He obviously loved learning though, and she was happy to see him throw himself wholeheartedly into acquiring a new skill. Especially one that would make their expeditions safer and probably more fun, too. On top of that, seeing him and Taako spending time together made her happy; Taako had a difficult time connecting in ways that didn’t involve teasing or being flippant and detached, and he probably came off as uncaring frequently. She knew that was far from true though -- he had a great capacity for compassion and caring. Though the rest of the crew maybe didn’t realize it yet, one of his primary ways of showing that he cared was through cooking. He was accomplished at playing it off like it was just something he loved doing, that it wasn’t really for anyone other than him, like it was just him flexing, showing off. But if there was one true thing about Taako, it was that he took care of the people close to him, whether it was apparent or not -- and maybe even while actively denying that he was. But, she saw him with Barry, obviously enjoying sharing and teaching a skill and taking his tutelage over Barry very seriously. Providing that amount of care and attention meant that sometimes he leaned a bit more into teasing Barry than usual, just to reassert the distance that had become a habit for him to maintain. Having over a hundred years of practice being distant wasn’t a habit that was about to be broken in their dozen years together. 

 

Lup was a little bit more adaptable, more malleable in her approach to life and ability to trust people. For Taako, looking out for the both of them had become second nature; it was part of him. And that wasn’t something that even immortality could change, and she could understand that -- him dying was unbearable, even with the promise of his return, and she could only imagine what it was like for him when she was gone. Though there was no way of being able to tell, and no way that he would ever admit it, he was a fair bit more sensitive than she was, and definitely more afraid of being alone. 

 

Lup was shaken out of her thoughts when she heard her brother calling up to her. 

 

“Hey, LuLu! Bringing your nerd back to ya.” Lup smirked when she saw Barry smile and look at his feet as Taako said that. She hadn’t seen him much lately and she was looking forward to spending the rest of the day with him and Davenport looking for the light. She felt hopeful about finding it as well, for the usual reasons but also she was wanting to have an excuse to get back into the lab with Barry; maybe that would be the key to sorting out what was going on with him. Lup threw finger guns at Taako, who returned the gesture, and she turned to go back inside the ship to meet them at the door. 

 

***

 

“This is a difficult place to map.” Barry stood intently near Davenport, eyes glancing up and out the window, searching for any distinguishing features, in between writing down the updated numbers for their distance traveled, temperature, and current altitude as Lup read them off. 

 

“As long as we can get back to where we were and we’re not accidentally covering the same ground as our last outing, I’m happy,” Davenport spoke without taking his eyes off of the course ahead of him. 

 

“Yeah, I guess it’s not like having an accurate map of the place is going to do us any good in the long run.” Lup was sitting up on the counter near Barry, having a good view of the panel keeping track of the data she was reading off from there. She caught Barry from the corner of her vision and noticed that he had some soot on the side of his face, probably from something Taako had practiced with him earlier. She reached her hand out to wipe it away, “Oh hey, Bear, you got something here.” 

 

At the feel of her hand on his cheek, it was like he was snapped out of the trance that his work had put him in, and he jumped at her touch. She sat frozen, her hand still extended but hovering just next to him as she tried to understand his reaction. “Geez Barold, sorry.” She lowered her hand, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Noticing the look he was being given and interpreting as irritation, Barry began to apologize.

 

“Ugh, s-sorry Lup, I was just really absorbed in this. And I’m uh -- I think I’m kind of tired, frazzled after a lot of work and not sleeping well and --” 

 

Lup forced a smile and a small laugh. “It’s okay, nerd. Just let me get this off of your face, you look like a doofus.” She lifted her hand again and he stayed still as he felt her thumb wipe at his cheek, and he could have died at the sensation of his heart racing and the overwhelming fear that he was sweaty or gross feeling in any way. 

 

Their moment was interrupted by Davenport gasping. “I think we’ve got something!” Lup and Barry looked out the window to see a bright column of soft, ethereal light shooting up from somewhere below the water. Davenport slowed the ship and prepared to circle the spot so that they could observe the area. What they soon found was that the light was not deep underwater -- in fact, it was just below the surface, sitting atop the beginning of a coral reef that looked to stretch on for miles ahead of them. The top of the reef was only barely below the surface of the water and it created almost a solid floor of dazzling colors spread across a surface of pockmarked, porous coral, except that the coral of that particular world was, in some areas, almost translucent and shiny, like crystal. They stared down in awe at the sight of a jeweled floor supporting the alluring light, so close to them, like it was being served on a silver platter. 

 

“Well… shit.” Lup slid off of the counter and crowded in with Barry and Davenport at their position in front of the window. “I guess one of us lowers down and see if we can pick it up?” 

 

“Yeah, that sounds good, Lup. I’ll get in as close as I can if you or Barry want to get ready to go down?” 

 

“Oh, it’s gonna be me!” Lup was up and striding towards the door of the cockpit before Barry could even get a word in. All he could was follow after her. 

 

***

 

Barry helped Lup with clipping the cord to her harness, trying to hide the fact that his face was on fire from being so close to her. He kept almost offering to go instead, but he had already done so three times and she had shut him down each time. She really wanted to go, was excited about it even, but Barry felt sure that something was going to go wrong and he was growing increasingly more sick to his stomach. He wished she would let him go; he wished that he could do anything other than feel absolutely useless. Horrible scenarios ran through his head and he could feel himself starting to panic. He didn’t want to see her get hurt, didn’t want to watch her  _ die, _ and he felt absolutely certain that something was going to go wrong. 

 

Her face was one of pure glee as she disappeared down the floor hatch and out into the open air. He willed that face to be burned into his vision and tried to force out all of the frantic thoughts as he moved over the hatch to watch, ready to instruct Davenport on any adjustments he might need to make as she lowered down. The lump in Barry’s throat almost suffocated him as she approached the surface of the water and then was close enough to have her feet submerged. She leaned forward, dipping the net into the water, reaching for the light. But she wasn’t low enough. She hit the switch in front of her on the metal cable that she was precariously suspended from and lowered a bit more into the water, up to her waist. Barry sucked in air but was unable to exhale. He noticed that his hands were shaking. She lowered a bit more, up to her chest in the water, her braided hair flowing behind her under the surface looking like a bundle of golden fabric moving through the gently rocking water. 

 

And Barry saw something move. His eyes widened and his teeth clenched and he felt his veins fill with ice. Lup had obviously seen something too; she stiffened and stood deathly still, watching. She slowly reached her hand to the switch, trying not to draw attention to herself. The adrenaline running through Barry’s body was overwhelming and it had nowhere to go, there was nothing he could do . 

 

“Up! Davenport, we gotta go up!” Barry yelled out, not taking his eyes off of Lup, wanting nothing more than to just see her being raised out of the water. Davenport immediately responded, but before her feet were out of the water, Barry saw it again -- a long, quick dark blue shadow striking out from a hole in the coral floor and darting towards the light. Lup latched on to her harness, steadying herself as she was being lifted by the ship, and hitting the switch to raise herself up and back to the hatch. They both watched the shadow as it reached the light, coiled around it, grasped it within rows of suction cups, and pulled it down into the reef, until the light was completely snuffed out. 

 

They had lost it. But they still had Lup. Barry was finally able to let go of his breath and slowly exhaled in time with her ascent. 

 

***

 

Davenport and Lucretia sat on the edge of the plateau by the fishing line-laden tree, Davenport filling her in on their failed mission as she recorded the information that he gave her while the planet’s small sun began to set, turning the sky a fiery reddish purple. Lup and Taako were nearby, lying on the ground and looking up at the sky while shooting off small streaks of crackling, sparkling light from their fingertips out of boredom. Magnus sat on the opposite side of the tree from Lucretia and Davenport, chipping down rocks into short spears to be used for more fishing line chimes. Barry looked out towards the sea and the sun, towards his friends, from the deck of the Starblaster where he sat in a chair with a book that he was only periodically glancing at a sentence or two from. 

 

They had gotten a couple lazy hours of peaceful silence, watching the sun’s slow descent, when they were all startled by what sounded like words booming from the sea. Not any language they could understand, but definitely something like syllables that were gurgled and as loud as thunder as they rang out -- a second later, there was a massive, slick, black tentacle shooting out from the water and toward the ledge where Davenport and Lucretia sat. Barry jumped to his feet and could only watch while it all happened in front of him, indescribably fast…

 

Davenport and Lucretia were grasped by the tentacle both at once -- it twitched and in a sickening, jerked motion, wrapped itself into a coil with the two of them at the center. There was no way they were still alive. The tentacle twitched again, still coiled into a ball, and then violently spasmed, sweeping across the ledge and plowing into Lup and Taako. Taako was thrown into the tree headfirst. Lup was knocked over the edge and into the sea. The tentacle sluggishly receded, coiled tight and shaking, and disappeared back into the waves. And the booming words rang out again, clear and forceful, shaking the ground, but were then obfuscated by gurgling once again as it was dampened and eventually silenced completely under the water. 

 

It all happened within a split second, and Barry’s brain was on fire, not knowing what to do, his body locked with panic. He saw Taako limp on the ground. And then he saw Magnus who, without hesitation, dove over the side of the plateau into the water. Barry shook himself out of his stupor and ran to the cockpit. He had the Starblaster started and rising up into the sky within a minute, and was about to zip over and drop the cable down for Magnus and… and hopefully for Lup. He was barely elevated enough to start heading towards them when he saw from out the windshield that Taako had gotten up and was at the edge of the plateau, on hands and knees but raising his wand hand out over towards the water. Barry hovered and watched as Magnus, holding Lup, was levitated up and over the edge by Taako, who then collapsed as soon as he had them set firmly on the ground. Barry stopped watching and set to getting landed so that he could get out and over to his friends. 

 

Descending and landing felt like an eternity when his hands were shaking, desperately needing to get to his friends but, as soon as he had safely settled the ship down, he realized that he couldn’t run to them. He had  _ just  _ watched as they all almost died; if he went out there and that tentacle came back and crushed them all -- that would be it. So he sat helplessly and called them on their stones. 

 

“Hey, guys, are you all okay?” 

 

There was no answer. Barry ran back out to the deck and saw Magnus carrying both Lup and Taako, slung limply over each shoulder. He ran to the door to meet them, frustrated with his inability to do  _ anything _ at all. 

 

Magnus stepped inside, out of breath and soaking wet. He knelt to let the barely conscious elves down, and Barry reached to help the wet and stumbling Lup off of his shoulder and to the couch, then turned to put a supporting arm around Taako as he slumped off Magnus’s shoulder next. He took in the scene of Magnus resting against the floor and Lup and Taako breathless with half-lidded eyes melting into the couch. He ran to get towels for them and the onslaught of intrusive thoughts started right away. He hadn’t been able to do  _ anything _ , he couldn’t help at  _ all,  _ even with everything he had been working on and learning lately, he did nothing. He could only watch as part of his family was crushed and the rest were almost swept away. 

 

Towels in his arms, dashing back to the common room, he tried to will away the tears forming in his eyes.

 

***

 

Taako sat on the couch, his arm in a splint, looking annoyed. 

 

“I just want this shit cycle to be over with already. Having a broken arm is bullshit. This whole planet has been the fucking worst.” He practically spat out the words. Lup was cuddled up against him, silent. She was worried; there was only four of them, they still had three months left, and there was some kind of monster out there with the light that had almost wiped out all of them except for Barry. Taako was injured, Barry was -- there was a lot going on with Barry. And Magnus had become so attached to the villagers. And they didn’t have the light. And there probably would be no getting the light. 

 

They had a bonfire planned with the villagers that night; they had had a really good week of fishing and had been able to pad their own supplies well enough that they felt confident in sharing some more of what they had from previous cycles with the locals. Their diet was so limited there and the crew was excited to have a big dinner with their new friends and introduce them to some foods from other planes. Lup was going to have her work cut out for her in the kitchen that day, what with her brother being down an arm. The thought occurred to her that she could enlist Barry’s help -- he could at least chop and clean things, she was sure. 

 

She found Barry in the lab, staring blankly at the spines of the books on the shelf to the far side of their work space, anxiously chewing at his fingernails. She stood at the doorway and cleared her throat, hoping she would give him enough warning and he would maybe think that she hadn’t noticed what he was doing. But, he turned slowly, his hand still partially raised. He dropped it and nervously smiled. 

 

“Bad habit.” He choked out a laugh. “How’s it going, Lup?”

 

“As good as it can be right now, I guess.” She sighed and her head dropped a bit. 

 

She hesitated, but then walked over and sat in the chair next to Barry. He was yelling at himself internally; she looked concerned about something and there was heat rising to his face, his brain reacting to his stupid crush when he should have been being a good friend and figuring out what was wrong. 

 

“Barry. Are we — good?” 

 

He didn’t know how to respond. That wasn’t what he was expecting. Lup had noticed that he was acting different. He thought he had just been keeping a respectful distance; he hadn’t intended to pull away to the point that it started to worry her. He just wanted to make sure that he wasn’t accidentally engineering situations where he took up too much of her attention. He had gotten inside of his own head so much that he had done the wrong thing, again. 

 

“Uh. Y-yeah, Lup, of course. I’m sorry if, uh — I don’t know, I’m sorry if I did something.” 

 

“You didn’t  _ do  _ anything, Barold. It just feels like we haven’t really been palling around lately. I was wondering if maybe I had burned you out with… needing so much support recently.” She looked almost sad for a moment and Barry’s heart dropped to the floor. 

 

“Oh — oh my gods, Lup, no. I-I… I am  _ so _ glad I was able to be there for you and it’s something I would do as much and as often as you needed,” his breath hitched in his throat as he blushed, knowing that that sentiment held true for  _ anything  _ she needed. “I’m, uh — sorry if I’m being different or something. I just. I guess I’ve been really hung up on improving myself and was uh. Kind of worried a lot for a bit about not being able to do enough. Been stuck in my own head, I guess.”

 

She smiled, but it was a smile heavy with concern. “Barry. I don’t know how many different ways I can tell you that you’re enough. So, I’ll just say again that _you are_ _enough_. And if we can get back to being friends, that would be great. Now,” she patted him on the knee as she got out of her chair. “Come help me with dinner. I’ll only give you the easy stuff to do, promise.” 

 

***

 

Magnus sat at the fire next to a villager, Mmarof, who he had befriended over their time there. She had been the first to really warm up to him; she was pregnant and struggling with her work when they first arrived, and Magnus of course immediately noticed and offered to assist her. He ended up helping her with everything, even making repairs to her home, and it was through her budding friendship with him that the children were drawn to and able to trust him as well. She had also been teaching him how to weave with the long, coarse grass that grew on some of the cliff edges. He took to it immediately and had been using it as a way to relax, weaving arm bands and sleeves to go around plant pots or cups. All manner of things that the crew found pointless, but didn’t say anything because they saw how much joy Magnus got out of the mere ability to create something. 

 

He chatted and smiled along with his friend as they all sat around the fire with the other villagers, some of the children chasing each other in circles or climbing on the tree nearby. They had made sure to stay far inland, not wanting to risk another encounter with the tentacle. 

 

Barry stared into the fire, deep in thought. Taako was right. That year had fucking sucked and Barry was ready for it to be over and to have everyone back. He was so glad to have Lup, he was  _ so  _ glad that they had talked and he felt confident that things would be better with them, that he could be a good and dedicated friend. He felt bad too, as usual, that he had made her worry in the first place. But he was working on finding the things to be happy about. She was there. Taako and Magnus were there. It wouldn’t be long until they had everyone else back, too. And then he realized, earlier in the year, when they had almost lost everyone to the tentacle, he had mourned them as his  _ family _ . Somewhere along the line, the crew had gone from coworkers, to friends, to family, with the ship being home. It was a desperate and haphazard family, pulled together tight by impossible circumstances and disaster and existential terror but… that was his  _ family.  _ And he couldn’t remember the last time he had used that word. 

 

Barry felt Lup’s head rest against his shoulder. It took everything in him not to jump; even the thought of her being that close to him was enough to make every nerve in his body vibrate, but it was more important that he didn’t make her worry again. He willed himself to stay still, to treat it like the normal, platonic gesture that it was.  _ He knew what it was _ . All he had to do was treat it that way and set his own feelings and ideas aside until they hopefully, maybe someday, subsided. 

 

***

 

It was time. The cues for their exit had started and were rapidly mounting. The color was starting to leave the world, the temperature was steadily dropping. Barry was already nervous about having to be the one to get them out; it was their first time without Davenport, and he was nerve wracked, hoping he wouldn’t screw it up, that he wouldn’t let everyone down. And on top of all of that, Magnus stood in front of him, at the bottom of the ramp onto the Starblaster, the newborn child of his friend cradled in his arms. 

 

“I wasn’t --” Magnus choked. “I wasn’t able to save Luc and Dav, and I was only barely able to get Lup, I need… I need to help her baby,  _ I need to.”  _

 

“Magnus…” Barry felt his heart sinking. “We don’t know where we’re going next, whether there’ll be supplies enough for us, even. I-I -- don’t know how we could even promise to keep a baby alive.” 

 

Lup stepped up. “It’s not gonna stay alive here, for certain. So,” and she shrugged at Barry. “We can at least try.” 

 

Barry nodded. 

 

“Yeah. We can try. We  _ should  _ try.”

 

Magnus rushed up the ramp, the child in his arms, and stopped just before the entrance into the ship to wave to his friend one last time, the other villagers and children surrounding her, huddled together in a huge mass, bracing themselves against the coming storm. Tears streaming down his face, he turned and hurried inside. Barry and Lup followed him in and within moments, they had the ramp raised and Barry was at the helm, preparing to safely take them out. He looked on sadly at the village from out the window as they ascended. It hurt -- it hurt  _ so much _ not knowing what would happen to them next. Not being able to do anything except to leave. 

 

As they hurtled away from the storm, Barry saw something within the cloud of frothing, inky blackness that he hadn’t seen before. Spaces of white, drowsily opening and closing in a wave-like pattern across large swaths of the surface of the Hunger. Focusing his vision and looking more intently at the white spaces, tracing their shapes, he came to the chilling realization that they were eyes -- hundreds, maybe thousands of them. All rolling and blinking and rising to the surface of the massive darkness. 

 

***

 

Taako stood staring out the large observation window, feeling empty inside. Another ending. Another world consumed. Another unknown amount of lives surrounded by darkness and just -- gone. Simply by looking out the window, he could watch an entire world blink out of existence. How fucked up was that. Who else had ever had to do that once, let alone over and over again, other than the seven of them? As he watched another world die, he felt the chasm within him run a little deeper.

 

He didn’t understand how Magnus could keep doing it; keep getting attached, keep caring. What was the fucking point. A moment later, he was ripped away from the window, shattered into soft strings of white light, and reassembled in the same spot as always. And he saw Merle, Lucretia, Barry and Lup next to him. His arm was fixed, his body wasn’t sore anymore. And then he saw Magnus fall to his knees and dissolve into tears. 

 

While he had always suspected it, it had just been proven… no one could ever come with them. He wished he hadn’t known, wished it hadn’t been confirmed, because then there at least could have been that tiny sliver to try and hold on to. But then. It was final. There would be no other friends. There would be no love for him. There was no point in making a meaningful connection with anyone outside of their group.

 

That was it. They were all that each other had.

 


	14. In the Lab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Fourteen

 

Their world for the year was brimming with plant life; miles of verdant jungle that dwindled into endless fields filled with hundreds of flowers of varying species and shocking colors. Beyond those fields were thick, lush forests full of trees heavy with fruit and large expanses of land tangled in thorny vines anchored by vegetables that were reminiscent of gourds, but again in a palette of colors never before seen by the crew. The planet was occupied by various smaller races, mostly halflings and gnomes, living in scattered, small, tight knit communities. They wanted nothing to do with the crew, but weren’t hostile towards them, at least. And there was plenty of land that wasn’t inhabited by or belonging to anyone, so they had more than enough area to safely explore and scavenge all they wanted. 

 

Lup and Barry had their work cut out for them immediately upon arrival with testing the massive variety of plants to find out what was safe for the crew to eat, which had turned out to be most things; enough for them to completely max out their storage space and enough for Taako to experiment with cooking and for the crew to regularly feast without having to be mindful of their reserves. 

 

It was a peaceful, beautiful and seemingly safe planet, and once Lup and Barry had completed their testing on the local flora, there wasn’t much else to do except to execute their own research, just to further their knowledge -- and to look for the light.

 

*** 

 

The lab was barely lit; it was warm and golden when Lup walked in. Barry had obviously been hard at work since before the natural light coming through the circular overhead windows had changed to darkness. He had the automatic lighting of the Starblaster disabled in the lab; sometimes he would need it to be completely dark or to have light focused only in a certain spot, so he used his own, manual light sources. That night, there was only one dimming, dying bulb turned on above his work space. Lup wondered if maybe he needed more light and was just too engrossed in his work to notice -- but also, she was really digging the atmosphere. It felt more homey and welcoming; less clinical. Lup was sitting in the swivel chair on the opposite end of the long, curved counter that made up the back half of Barry’s workplace. She kicked back away from the desk a bit, fully slumped in her chair, arms hanging off the armrests, fingers almost dragging on the floor, looking very obviously bored. She straightened and scooted towards Barry, who was moving between plant samples and his notes every few seconds. 

 

Lup kicked at the ground to roll towards him, almost knocking her chair into his. “Baaaarry. I want something to do.” 

 

He looked up from his work for the first time in over an hour. “Oh damn, yeah sorry, I uh -- was so involved in what I was doing that I forgot to catch you up on -- what it is that I’m doing. Which is not a great way to get your help." He laughed to try and cover up how nervous he had become; he had been getting back to being a little bit more open after having clammed up some over the prior couple years. He was talking with her so much more, and he was frequently joking again instead of stammering out apologies over and over. And his laugh. She was getting a lot more of that lately; it was the best laugh, and she did what she could in order to hear it often. 

 

Her boredom dissolved and she lit up knowing that he was about to teach her something new, or just get her involved in some shit. And, that she had his attention. No, no, no. It was about learning and working, not about Lup being noticed. Lup was always noticed, but she didn’t always get to learn and gain new skills; that’s what made it exciting to spend time with Barry in the lab. She definitely knew her way around there already, but she enjoyed gleaning his own personal knowledge and experience from him -- and, it was endlessly entertaining to watch him get flustered under receiving any sort of attention. 

 

Time with Barry was productive and fun. Time with  _ other _ people was about being noticed and the center of attention, which happened without her even trying or necessarily wanting that. But, there was something about Barry noticing her that felt so different, and she couldn’t figure out why that was.

  
  


“So, I’m trying to develop a way for us to be able to determine if uh, starting with plant based food I guess, if we can find out what’s safe to eat in a more efficient, and faster way and with clearer results, y’know. This stuff is hard; testing things according to our standards and our knowledge of biological makeup of plant matter when we’re literally on alien planets. But, I figure I can do this now while we’ve got some down time, and it can save us time in future years. Figure the faster we can know what’s safe when we start a new cycle, the sooner we can get to  _ real  _ work.” 

 

He was obviously genuinely enjoying working on a project that he came up with and assigned to himself apropos of nothing. He could have been using the opportunity for some rest, as most of the others were. Not Barry, though; he loved to work. But, she was also there, looking to him and his work to solve her boredom, so what did that say about her? He was about to talk, but she cut him off before he could expand on his idea.

 

“So, you came up with something to work on now, so that you can get to other work faster in the future. And I’m gonna guess that it’s probably so that you’ll have more time to work on other things between and after work? Maybe some things that will, hmmm, let’s see; give you more work?”

 

“What can I say,” he said brightly while shrugging, “I’m not livin’ if I’m not science-in’.” He laughed faintly, not because what he said was at all funny, but just because he was happy. Obviously, visibly happy.

 

After he he had spoken, while still wearing his goofy smile, he transitioned seamlessly into a fake, stereotypical, super nasally nerd voice and pushed up his glasses -- not in his normal way, but in a well timed, intentional way, and said “Me and science are best friends.” And Lup  _ died  _ laughing.

 

He was in such a fun mood and uncharacteristically confident and Lup was ecstatic.  

 

“You!” she said with lingering emphasis, through a huge smile. “Are. _SUuUch a NERD!”_ And then Lup did something that she’d done tons of times before; socked him _somewhat_ gently on his arm. And then Barry did something he’d _never_ done. The same thing, back to her.  

 

And Lup was surprised. In a good way, but definitely surprised, and Barry saw her surprise and realized what he had just done. 

 

“Oh gods, Lup, I am so sorry, I-I-I I don’t know why I did that or why that happened,  _ what is wrong with me,  _ I-I-I-- ” he was spilling out bits and pieces of words impossibly fast, his brain exploding as he saw flashes of their entire friendship collapsing within a moment. Lup interrupted him by leaning forward a bit and grabbing him by the shoulders. He stopped talking, but his mouth was still slightly agape and his eyes clearly showed the immense shame and panic he felt. 

 

“B-a-r-o-l-d,” she said his name firmly and drawn out and with emphasis on both syllables, as if she was trying to wake him from a trance, which she might as well have been. “That. Was hilarious. I am  so into this Barry that you are Barry-ing tonight, and I do  _ not  _ want you to freak out and never be like this again. Because one, it’s fucking cool and two, I don’t want you backing off from our chill hangs again, like last year.” He visibly calmed, though still a little nervous. Only really enough for  _ her _ to be able to tell though; she’d become an expert of reading his face. 

 

“Look. You shouldn’t ever feel bad about reciprocating, yeah? I punch you in the arm, it’s fair game to punch me in the arm. We are  _ buds _ and it is okay! And, Barry?” She waited for him to make eye contact with her, and she was glad that his eyes had relaxed and were meeting hers in such a natural way; it was kind of distracting. “If anything ever did happen between us that wasn’t okay, I would let you know and we would talk. Listen. I would never throw our friendship away or let it change over some tiny thing. Or even a medium sized thing. Medium-Large, though? That could be taking it too far.” She smiled and he smiled with her. 

 

He pulled in a deep breath as she let go of his shoulders and leaned back into her chair. He exhaled and said “I’m sorry I can be so, I guess easily shaken, and sorry that I --”

 

“Hey, Barry?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“ _ Stop apologizing. _ ”

 

“Heh. Yeah, I’ll try. That’ll be a tough one,” and he drew in another deep breath, trying to pull his body back into sync, his adrenaline still a little bit off. 

 

“I’m sor -- nope, stop,” he caught himself and partially covered his face with his hand in exasperation and momentarily closed his eyes, trying to think of how to say what he felt needed to be said without tearing himself down or apologizing profusely; things he had never even thought about working on before Lup. 

 

“Your friendship is really important to me. And I guess -- hitting you in the arm like that felt really disrespectful. And, Lup.” He purposefully met her gaze again, “I have so much respect for you. You’re an amazi-” and his adrenaline was flooding him and his heart was gearing up to go wild, and gods, why did he start that sentence? He took a short breath, lowered his tone a bit, and forced some calm into himself just be calm for a second, he begged his body. Try to summon some of that professor mentality from way back when, from a lifetime ago. 

 

“You’re an amazing person. I am constantly impressed and surprised by your work and how unnaturally fast you can learn. You are a good friend, a good sister, and a good colleague to us all. You are so  _ needed  _ and cared about.” He took in a sharp breath and gulped. “By everyone. And I don’t want to do anything to disrespect you.” 

 

The words had to be forced at times, and he was getting more and more light headed, but it all came out and nothing was stammered or unfinished and left hanging or surrounded by apologies. He didn’t say a word wrong or spontaneously forget a word completely. He said it all, and he felt good about what he said. 

 

What a fucking  _ feeling _ . 

 

Lup was taken aback. Just by virtue of being Lup, she had gotten lots of compliments throughout her life. She didn’t believe them all and she knew some come from a place of self gain. Many others she knew she deserved. Absolutely no one aside from Taako had ever said something even close to that sincere to her before, though. Was it only because she’d let basically almost all of her barriers down around him? Would everyone be that sincere with her if she were even less guarded with them? No -- that was just Barry. And she was either going to cry or say something really stupid if she didn’t reel the conversation back, at least a bit.  

 

“That means a lot to me Barry, truly. Even though that first half felt a little like I was getting a pep talk from a dad or a teacher.” She got a small laugh out of Barry.

 

“You need to loosen up around me!” She went on, trying to turn the flood of feelings into excitement and sincerity and to drown out anything else that was knocking around in her head. “I am never going to be put off or offended or uncomfortable about anything you do,  _ I’m sure. _ I want Barry unchained, let loose, uncensored, free roaming, all natural 100% grade-A-Barold, got it?” He smiled and exhaled and gave a relieved laugh. He got it, and he knew he was going to do whatever he could to be that for her. They met each other’s eyes with mutual gazes of deep warmth and calm.

 

But, she realized; there was something else very important that needed to be addressed. Couldn’t end on a joking note quite yet. 

 

Her face went soft and then formed a furrowed brow and slightly downturned lips. She took both of his hands into hers as they faced each other.

 

“Barry. What you said about not doing things like that out of respect for me…” and she involuntarily, abruptly paused, something forming in her throat and not allowing her to continue. It was not quite a lump or a hiccup but more like a strain; a sudden half-second restriction of her breath. Because she was barrelling head-first into “serious conversation” territory, and that was territory that she had successfully danced and tiptoed around for most of her life, save for the conversation with him back in their ninth year -- but that was all about him, not about  _ her  _ being vulnerable. Now she was walking around the edge of a boiling vat of her own vulnerability and was about to either decide to jump down to safety or intentionally let herself fall into it. And why would she choose to do that? To fall? Why was she definitely about to do that? Her eyes couldn’t face his; she was looking down at his hands in hers. 

 

“...do you think that I don’t respect you?” And at the end of that sentence, there was definitely a lump in her throat. 

 

There was a long pause between them and then Barry stammered through several different beginnings of a response that he didn’t have. His voice shook and he was even more nervous than usual because he was taken off guard by the question and by Lup’s sudden shift in demeanor (and definitely, and probably mostly, by her hands holding his) and also because he didn’t know how to answer, because either he had to lie to spare her feelings (but he could never lie to her) or… he had to admit that he didn’t feel like he was respected. It wasn’t something that he was angry or resentful about and it absolutely was not something he demanded or needed or even wanted. It was just something that was absent, though he wasn’t even actively pursuing it or trying to get it from anyone. It was simply a fact that he was aware of. That he was certain of. He wasn’t respected.

 

As he stammered and fidgeted, Lup took her right hand away from his and raised it to his face. She cupped his cheek and let her thumb lay over his mouth to hush him. It was an intimate and soft gesture that made him lightly gasp but also, as her hand settled perfectly around the curve of his cheek and her thumb lay still on his lips, made him warm everywhere and loosened all the tension in his body at once. 

 

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said in a voice softer than he thought was possible to come from his boisterous and loud friend, softer than when they had talked on a more serious level in the past. She sounded sad, and his heart dropped. And him being warm and without any tension and a heart that just free-fell, he completely melted and his shoulders dropped, too. 

 

She was looking straight at him, searching his eyes for something, and Barry was looking into her eyes without glancing away or lowering them as he almost always did.  

 

“Barry. I respect you immensely. You are one of the -- no, actually,  _ the  _ most intelligent person I have ever known. I have learned so much, just by being around you. You’re approachable and kind and willing to share your knowledge, without so much as a trace of pretension. There’s no stick up your ass, like most of the people I’ve ever known who  _ thought  _ they were smart,” she barely smiled and exhaled sharply through her nose in a kind of almost-laugh. Then she was completely serious again; a look that Barry didn’t know what to do with or how to react to. 

 

“You are —  _ so  _ knowledgeable, and you utilize that and apply it to your work, to which you are dedicated in a way that I have never seen anyone be dedicated to  _ anything _ . And you constantly push yourself to learn more, and you share and teach everything you can to anyone who wants to listen, and you do it with patience and kindness, and…” and then  _ she  _ was the one nervously rambling. That was not Lup. She let her hand drop from his face and scooped his free hand back up.

 

“I have a lot of respect for you, Barry. So much. And I trust you, completely. But,” she paused and felt like she was on the verge of tearing up. “I’ve never said that. And I’ve never done anything to show it.” 

 

She sighed and looked back down at his hands in hers, feeling warm at the sight, but still guilty. Barry was trying to put together a response, to protest, to tell her that she did so many things to show her trust in him, but he couldn’t find the words. All he could do was sit there with a slightly agape mouth and sad eyes as Lup continued. 

 

“I can’t just expect you to know how I feel. So, now I’m telling you. And if you know me at all, you sure as hell know that I wouldn’t say any of this or get this vulnerable if I didn’t mean it.” She looked back up at him and she was finally actually smiling; a little bit weakly and through slightly watery eyes, but a real, happy smile. Barry’s entire body felt like it was on pause. But then, she dropped his hands and raised hers to smoosh each side of his face, looking directly at him and putting on her best mock serious expression as she leaned in close. Barry’s heart shot back up and into his throat with Lup that close to him. 

 

“But, now that you know, you will never see me this mushy again, Barold,” she told him in an assertive tone. “You only get one Lup heart-to-heart, and you’ve just burned yours, cowboy.” 

 

And she laughed, and Barry laughed even though tears were free-falling from his eyes without him even crying. 

 

***

 

Barry thought over the conversation that happened in the lab while laying in bed that night. He turned each word over and over. 

 

He was spiraling into hyper fixating on the parts that made him feel awful; that moment of overwhelming panic right after punching her arm, her face when she suddenly got serious and sad ( _ nothing had ever made him feel so gutted _ ), the fact that he had said the whole thing about respect that sent her down the line of thought that upset her in the first place. As usual, he found countless ways to mentally punish himself. 

 

But, he started to think about how she felt about him,  _ she felt things about him, deep things, Lup told him that she felt things about him and how could he focus on anything else?  _ And he dragged himself out of that bad habit of his. He calmed and decided to try and be kind to himself and to focus on the good. She would want him to do that. Stop apologizing, stop feeling bad. 

 

He  _ was _ respected. He knew that now, and not only that, but it was by someone that he respected more than anyone else. Someone he was in awe of in every way. Someone he could barely be around without feeling electricity dashing through his nerves. 

 

As he thought over the good parts of that night, the  _ amazingly good parts _ , he brought his arms close in on himself under the covers and had both hands pressed against his chest, one over the other, inhaling deeply, burning all over with the memory of her hand on his cheek and thumb over his mouth. She had become close and comfortable with everyone, and her affection and approval and happiness was often shown through touches on the arm or with her head on a shoulder or a hug or a hand squeeze, but… 

 

He had  _ never  _ seen her touch anyone else like that. It was the softest thing he had ever felt. 

 

And Lup likewise turned the conversation over in her head while nested in her sheets that night, alone as Taako was still awake and mulling about the ship. She was cuddling a blanket that she had mushed into a cuddle-able mound. 

 

She felt different kinds of shame; a feeling completely foreign to her and a feeling that she was finding out she absolutely  _ loathed _ _.  _ Shame towards how she had treated Barry in the past, shame in being so completely vulnerable earlier that night, shame in how long it took her to realize what his perspective and feelings must have been the whole time. She inhaled, hitched, and choked with a sharp intake of air that was like a single heavy sob that happened to her suddenly, from the deep of her body, just because of a thought -- 

 

She was so carefree and happy and had just been having fun the whole time, and Barry was probably miserable and alienated; some times (maybe even a lot of times) because of her. It seemed like he had even started to intentionally alienate himself in the past year; maybe because he wanted to be left alone or maybe because he thought he deserved it. Deserved it because he wasn’t respected. She only ever thought about how she loved his blushing and his nervousness and his stuttering, but she had never thought about how he might have felt during those moments. Maybe he hated feeling that way, and she had been intentionally trying to draw those reactions from him because she liked them. 

 

Selfish. Mean. Inconsiderate. 

 

But, he thought so highly of her. And his compliment was focused on her intellect, on her being important, on her being worthy of respect. Of  _ his  _ respect; the most intelligent and kind person she had ever met. The most kind and intelligent person she had ever met who respected her and who she teased and prodded and frequently touched in an overly familiar way or in the manner that one would treat a kid; tousling his hair, bopping his nose, poking him in the ribs, accidentally finding his ticklish spots and exploiting those discoveries. 

 

Lup decided that she was going to treat him better. Like a colleague, like a professional, like their  _ damn  _ science officer who helped them constantly, on every cycle, to stay alive, and who had done the large part of the research that made their journey possible in the first place. They existed and they had the miraculous chance to keep  _ existence itself _ from being consumed, largely due to his intelligence, his lifetime of study, his life’s work… and he was so unassuming and didn’t ever act like any of that was true or lord it over them all when he definitely could have.  _ Gods _ she felt awful. He was such a perfect and truly good person.

 

There was a spot of warmth, a tiny island of comfort within the storm of emotion when she thought about him looking at her, about holding his hands, about everything he said about her. And Barry didn’t exaggerate and Barry didn’t lie. That was how he felt. And she wanted to start living up to what he thought of her. 

  
  


***

 

They had managed to find the light, but not until a little over ten months into their year. It was nestled in the center of a particularly thick jungle, one that was overgrown enough to completely choke out the light, making it impossible to see until they were almost on top of it. The vines had grown massive around it; some of them were as thick as the tree trunks around them, and the ones that wrapped around the trees had completely crushed them within their grip. The largest vines had started to grow in a very deliberate looking, spiral pattern around the light and Barry was reminded of the coils of the tentacle from their previous year and he shuddered at the thought. Lucretia stood near him, furiously sketching out the scene, and he wondered how she didn’t seem affected by the familiarity that he was struck by; the familiarity of the thing that had grabbed and crushed her. Even with their miraculous situation of coming back to life every year no matter what happened to them, it was still traumatic to die, or at least it was for the one time that Barry himself had died. And all that had happened to him was that he fell and had a brief few seconds where he knew he was about to die. There was a short, full body shooting pain, and then darkness, just for a second, before being back with everyone again. That brief moment of realization and that split second of pain, though -- it still crept into his head and he could almost sense the jolt of impact just from the thought of it. 

 

With just a couple of months to study the light, Barry didn’t feel  _ too  _ worried. He wouldn’t have to spend much time with it, so it was easier for him to dismiss the uneasiness that came with being in proximity to the light. He was still restless at night from knowing that the purpose of every year would be to find the light and continue to be around it until  _ something  _ happened, until he had some sort of breakthrough or understanding of it. And even then, what if understanding it didn’t stop or change anything? What if they found out that trying to understand the light had been a moot point and that they would continue on as they were, forever, hunting it down if only to minimize damage to the planes that they ended up in each year. The uncertainty of the future, the uncertainty of the  _ length _ of the future, was a constant buzz in Barry’s head. Lately, the only thing that had been able to distract him from that nervous buzzing was his thoughts of Lup. His feelings would lead to nothing, he knew, but maybe they could at least anchor him in the present a bit so that his wheels wouldn’t be continuously spinning, thinking about the future. At least, he wanted to give himself some excuse, some reason to divulge in his feelings rather than trying to stomp them out. 

 

Those last two months consisted of a lot of time in the lab with Lup. She had seemed a little distant, a little apprehensive around him, and he dismissed that as being a result of how vulnerable she had been with him earlier in the year; that whole conversation had been very unlike Lup, and he understood that it must have been hard for her. She was so vibrant and independent and a constant, bouncing ray of sunshine -- that conversation had been the antithesis of Lup-ness and it must have taken a lot out of her. Maybe it even embarrassed her. Barry resolved to never bring any of it up again. All loose ends had been tied anyways, and there really wasn’t anything else to discuss. Barry was hopeful, though; he was sure that it had cleared some sort of blockage in their friendship and that she would bounce back soon and they would grow even closer. 

 

***

Sitting in the lab, Lup was repeatedly poking at the light of creation with a pencil, the tip of it meeting some resistance towards the middle of the glowing sphere, but then phasing through it, sending a numb tingling through the pencil and into her hand. Barry watched, amused. Her face when she was at that dangerous combination of hyper and bored was the  _ best.  _ It filled the air with a sort of static excitement and anticipation. Barry was just about at his end of being able to focus on work or come up with any new ideas, anyways. He laughed when her brow furrowed and her mouth scrunched up, small and angry, as she increased the speed of her stabs at the light. 

 

“Hey, Lup? You wanna get out of here?” 

 

“Uuuuugh, yes,” she was instantly out of her chair, dramatically dropping the pencil to the ground, her head slumped back and shoulders slouched as she went through her dying throes of boredom before bouncing back to life, popping her head up to look at Barry and clasping her hands together. “Where are we going? What are we doing? What’s Barold’s big plan?”

 

“Well…” Barry loosely held his chin in thought. “So, I uh -- kind of  _ hate  _ those big, creepy vines that we found where the light was, right?” 

 

“Mmhmm, yessss, and?” 

 

“Well. Taako recently taught me magic missile. And, I’ve heard that you might know some pretty kick ass fire spells,” Barry dropped his hand from his chin and his smile widened. “Want to go use them for target practice?” 

 

Lup jumped up and down, her palms against her cheeks in glee. Barry’s heart fluttered at the fact that he had just done something that made her make  _ that  _ face. His day already couldn’t be better. She ran for the door. 

 

“Race you!” 

 

Barry shook his head and laughed. “You know that’s not even a contest, right?” But, he quickened his pace anyways, and went after her. 


	15. Ghost Oppression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Fifteen

Barry had pushed himself into finding a way to feel good about their conversation in the previous year, but it seemed like something had shifted for the worst. Or maybe there was just something else occupying Lup’s mind that was making her distant. Maybe something with Taako? Or Magnus. They had been working together pretty frequently that cycle. Or did it only seem that way because he was feeling alone -- and afraid of why their friendship changed. And hyper aware of every possible thing that might have caused it.

 

Of course he would find some way to screw up the best friendship he had ever had. And then on top of that, be too dense to even know why. He had never been great with interpersonal things; he didn’t know how to read people, how to match their tone, how to effectively interact or be comfortable with people or how to make sure they were comfortable around him. Every interaction was laden with anxiety and he didn’t know how to process or understand where he stood with anyone.  _ And  _ he overthought everything. He found every way to be anxious and nervous constantly, and that energy probably exuded from him and turned people off. The frustration was piling up; he had felt like he was learning and finally figuring it out. He thought that he had been doing better. He thought that he successfully steered back to being relaxed around Lup and that he understood her and that she was able to understand him. But, something had gone wrong and he didn’t know how to decipher it or what to do about it except to stew in his anxiety. And that would probably only make things worse.

 

Maybe if he hadn’t been a nervous mess, she’d still want to be friends with him. She must have finally realized how difficult or boring he was, and was having more fun without him. Or she had become bored with how science knowledge was the only thing that he had to offer and she wanted to move on to more interesting skills. Maybe she had realized that he wasn’t worth the trouble, that there really wasn’t anything more to him, that she had already gleaned everything there was to know about him and finally deemed him to be uninteresting. It had been over a dozen years, after all. That was more than enough time to get tired of someone. To get tired of  _ him _ . How could he possibly have enough to offer that could have even lasted that long. He was lucky to have had her attention for even a minute. Back on their home world, if someone like her had even so much as looked at him, he wouldn’t have known what to do with himself. It was only because of their unique circumstances that he was lucky enough to have been close to her for over a decade. But, they were getting more used to their situation, and she must have finally realized that she simply wasn’t interested in him. At all. 

 

The new plane matched his mood; uneasy and tense. It was an eerie place, covered almost entirely with thin woods; the trees were tall and pale and skinny, spaced far apart from each other. The ground was flat everywhere and covered in beds of rotting, blackened leaves. There were no plants, no brush, no climbing vines in the woods -- nothing but the ghostly wisps of trees and the black, spongy ground. There was little to offer in the way of edible material on the planet, and they felt lucky to have been able to stock up so much in the previous year. There were bodies of water; streams crystal clear and icy cold that ran over smooth, dark rocks. And within the streams there was the occasional fish, but they were pale and some were almost translucent -- their eyes were grown over with skin and they looked like they had been living in caves. They were edible, but tasted awful, and there was nothing even Taako could do about that. And, maybe the strangest things of all were the floating masses of land. They were scattered across the world, miles long and at various heights above the ground, some nothing but grass and rock and others filled with trees whose roots extended out underneath the floating island-like masses, hanging in the chilling, howling wind that was a constant and haunting characteristic of the environment. 

 

And the night time -- there was significantly more night than day. A good three fourths of each day was dark there. And when there was light, everything was steeped with a thick fog. Even the sun looked gray. The rain was frequent and heavy and being outside in general was miserable and unnerving. Merle claimed that he had caught sight of something moving between the trees in the distance, but it was hard to tell through the heavy mist. Something tall and dark, sort of floating; it could have just been a patch where there was an absence of fog that was simply filled in with darkness. It all sort of swirled and moved in a way that sometimes tricked the eyes into seeing shapes in it. 

 

***

Barry sat in the lab with Lucretia; they had performed a survey of the area earlier and Barry was refining his hurriedly sketched map. Lucretia read off notes that she had taken on unique land features that they had found and areas that might have been worth exploring at a later time, and Barry added notations and details to his map based on her observations. It was a very sterile, straight-to-the-point interaction. They got a lot of work done, and Barry enjoyed getting to spend time with Lucretia, but he was distracted and on edge. 

“Barry? Did you hear that last bit?” Lucretia looked at Barry expectantly. 

Barry had his chin planted firmly in his upturned palm, his elbow propped on the counter in front of him. He was spinning his pencil in his other hand and had momentarily completely blanked out, his thoughts nowhere and everywhere at once. 

“Oh. Damn. Sorry, Lucretia. What was it?” 

“That next area was where we saw the cave that connected to the end of the stream, approximately eight and a half yards off of the trail to the west from where the next floating island started.” 

“Oh yeah, yep. Okay.” Barry started sketching again and adding to his map legend, but his hand was faltering and slowing. 

“Are you… okay, Barry?” Lucretia shut her notebook and cocked her head.

“Umm, uh yeah, just uh. Had a pretty long day between working with Taako and our trek. I’m not in the best of shape, you know,” he forced a weak chuckle. “Ya gotta remember, I’m an old man compared to you.” 

Lucretia smiled pleasantly. “Oh, you’re fine, Barry. It was a long day by anyone’s standards. I’m pretty close to being ready to turn in myself. But, we’ve only got a little bit left. Probably better to get it done while it’s still fresh on our minds.” 

Barry had to admit that she was right. Though, he had felt a sense of relief when she said she was ready to turn in; he thought the excuse to stop was going to come up after she had said that, and that he was going to get to be alone with his thoughts in bed. He felt bad about wanting to cut their work short and for wanting to cut his time with Lucretia short as well, but he couldn’t focus and probably didn’t make for good company at the moment, anyways. He was just ready to be alone and to wallow in the negativity that had been hanging over him. He was exhausted from pretending that things were okay all day, from trying to convince himself that they were okay, from pushing away his worry. He just needed to indulge his anxiety for a bit and then fall asleep and start over. See how he felt the next day. 

***

The crew had started referring to them as ‘witches’ -- the black static, ethereal figures floating in the fog that Merle had seen earlier in the year before one had taken his life. They had long, spindly black arms without hands that extended from out of their ever shifting forms, and from those arms they cast some sort of magic that manifested as a wave of pale, multicolored circles that apparently -- melted your insides. They let loose of their magical energy with a hollow, echoing screech as they targeted Merle. It had been a horrifying scene, and Magnus only barely escaped. After that, they knew not to go out at night anymore. 

 

They had a goodbye party for their fallen friend, drinking and laughing, talking about their favorite Merle moments from that year -- weird but sweet advice that he gave, his love of life and the way that he accepted and embraced their bizarre situation more than anyone else felt capable of. They talked about his abrupt and strangely timed monologues about Pan and how he would take any opportunity at all to preach to them no matter how far he had to stretch the connections he made. And also how he would frequently do something that anyone else would be embarrassed by; not paying attention and walking face first into a wall, tripping and falling over nothing, or completely missing the point in a conversation and blurting out the exact wrong thing to say -- but he was always unphased and would either roll with it or double-down. He had never been embarrassed about anything; not once. And they loved him for all of those qualities that made him so unique, that made him so unapologetically  _ Merle.  _

 

Barry had started to loosen up a little about drinking whenever the crew had their get-togethers. He realized that he didn’t have to be concerned about causing any permanent damage to his coveted brain since he essentially got a fresh one each year. He had done his best to get himself in a good mood before drinking so that he wouldn’t be too quiet or obviously bothered by something once he got tipsy around everyone. It got exponentially easier to feel better once he was in the same room with Lup, hearing her laugh and seeing her play around with her brother. 

 

When Barry had first walked into the common room, he was a little bit late to the party since he had been finishing up some work before joining them. When he finally came in, he was unceremoniously greeted by Taako first. 

 

“Hey everybody, iiiiit’s,” Taako put his fingers over his eyes in two circles to imitate glasses “Barooold!” He yelled his greeting out in a sing-song, game-show-host sort of voice, as if he were introducing Barold into the room like one would introduce someone to a stage. Barry would never get used to having attention drawn to him like that; it was the worst. He knew his face was red and everyone would notice and that only added to the embarrassment. Lup elbowed Taako in the side and he reacted dramatically, practically throwing himself to the other side of the couch while falling over. 

 

“My rib! My ribs! My entire rib cage! Every bone in my body! Lup, you’ve destroyed me, your brother! Taako!” They both exploded into laughter as Lup jumped at him with a pillow, trying to smother his face while he pushed and slapped her away. 

 

It was apparent that Magnus was working hard to be in the moment and to enjoy their company. He had understandably been heavily affected by what he saw when Merle was killed. When he described what had happened, he did so with a strange emptiness in his voice and a flat tone that was highly uncharacteristic for Magnus. They all kept close to him after that, seeing that he obviously needed comfort. 

 

Magnus was mostly quiet, but he still drank with them and smiled and tried to laugh along with the conversation. Lup and Taako had calmed a bit, and as a result of their tussle, they had ended up trading positions on the couch, leaving Lup sitting a cushion’s length away from Barry. They had all moved on from their pleasant chatting about Merle into fond memories they had made in the more hospitable planes they had visited. The crew kept the conversation steered away from what was outside, from the more harrowing parts of the previous year, from any of the many hardships they had experienced so far. They followed Merle’s influence and managed to find the little spots of brightness that shone through the cracks of their dark times. 

 

***

 

Lucretia went to bed first, followed shortly after by Magnus, who had barely drank but was sluggish and a bit disoriented as he left the common room. The rest of the crew watched as he left, concerned, hoping that he would be doing better in the morning. They quickly discussed what they might be able to do for him the next day to help. Taako made plans to scrape together the ingredients to make one of Magnus’s favorite breakfasts; blueberry pancakes. It was adorable to everyone how excited he got over them. Though they hadn’t had blueberries for several years, Taako did have a vaguely similar type of berry, dried and sealed somewhere in their reserves. 

 

Once Davenport went to bed, the twins were only just reaching the peak of their rambunctious energy for the night. Barry was starting to get a little bit tired, but he knew that if he left for bed he would be restless, much like he had been for the past several nights. Besides, he was enjoying his time with the two of them too much to let sleepiness stop him. They encouraged even more drinking and Barry indulged himself alongside them; Taako had even gotten a bit drunker than Barry had ever seen him before. 

 

Barry was left out of the conversation for a bit as Lup and Taako got distracted reminiscing about their long gone past lives, the days where they only had each other. Barry wasn’t bothered though; it was something that he loved hearing about. He was always amazed at the resiliency and motivation of the twins. He was well aware that he had never known struggles like theirs, and he admired them both greatly. 

 

Taako vibrated with excitement as he spontaneously remembered something during their conversation. “Oh! Shit! Remember that time that guy was trying to hit on you, and when you didn’t respond, he tried to neg you?” 

 

“Oh my GODS,” Lup slapped an exasperated palm to her forehead. “He was the WORST, what the fuck was it that he said to me again? I can’t even remember, he was such a waste of space. I just remember it being something hilariously desperate and bad.” 

 

“Oh shit, it was like… something about your eyes, I think? Or the face you were making?”

 

Lup bounced in her seat and gasped. “OH oh oh, no! It was ‘I don’t really like other elves with ears  _ that  _ long, anyways,’ like, fucking dude? What? What does that even  _ mean _ ? That’s not even a thing anyone gives a fuck about.” 

 

“Oh my gods, and then when you laughed straight in his fucking face and called him a ‘pissy baby,’ I will NEVER forget the look on that fool’s face.” 

 

The twins dissolved into fits of laughter. As they tapered down, Taako was wiping tears from his eyes while Lup regained her composure a bit more quickly. 

 

“Barry would never do something like that, huh?” Lup winked at him and smiled. 

 

Barry rubbed the back of his neck and nervously laughed. “Heh, y-yeah, I mean. That guy sounds like a jerk. Screw him.” 

 

“Yeah! Screw him. You’re basically like, the opposite of that dude. That’s why you’re my best friend.” Lup gave him a giant, squinty-eyed smile and Barry blushed profusely, even less able to control his reactions to Lup being as buzzed as he was. 

 

Without warning, Taako got up and flopped himself down on Barry’s lap, sitting sideways so that he could stare at Lup while he lazily wrapped his arm around Barry’s shoulders. “Oh, poor LuLu. Don’t you know that Barry is  _ my  _ best friend now?” 

 

Barry didn’t know what to do or what was even happening or how to react. Lup scrunched up her face and narrowed her eyes at Taako. She wiggled her entire body like a cat and pounced on her brother, sprawling over Barry as she put Taako in a headlock. 

 

***

  
  


It wasn’t much longer until Taako was too drunk and tired and left for their bedroom. And then it was just Barry and Lup. He was sure that he was imagining it, but it almost seemed like Lup had been intentionally delaying going to bed until everyone else did. That was definitely what he had been doing -- he hadn’t had too much one on one time with her that cycle and he was desperately missing it. He felt particularly emboldened by the level of intoxication that the twins had encouraged him to get to, and as Lup sat near him, near enough for their arms to brush up against each other, he didn’t shy away or fidget. He just sank into the pleasant feeling of being close to Lup, of not having to miss her anymore, at least in that moment. 

 

“So. What has Barry’s world been like lately, huh? I’ve barely seen my nerd.” She leaned into him a bit, steadying her wobbly self against him. 

 

“Well. I’ve gotten pretty far in mapping out the areas that Davenport has hopped us around to, but without much luck in finding anything pointing towards the light. Uh, let’s see -- Magnus got me to join him in doing push-ups before breakfast last week, and I was uh, heh, barely able to use my arms for the next couple of days.” 

 

Lup snort-laughed, but didn’t say anything. She just leaned into Barry a bit more. 

 

“Oh, and uh, apparently I’m best friends with Taako now.” 

 

“Hah!” Lup’s head tipped upward a bit, and it looked like her eyelids were starting to falter. “Well,” she let her head drop again, “you and I both know  _ that  _ isn’t true.” She nudged him as she said that by pushing herself into him a bit and then rocking back. Her voice was fading and mumbly as she said, “You’re  _ mine _ .” 

 

After she slumped to the side, her full body weight against his arm and her head on his shoulder, Barry thought about waking her up, thought about offering to walk her to her room. But he was just  _ so  _ comfortable and  _ so  _ happy… he felt blissful and sleepy and worn out and decided that there was nothing in the world that could make him move. He sunk back into the couch, slowly so that Lup’s head wasn’t jostled, and his eyes closed. Once he was fully asleep, his head tilted to the side and ended up resting on top of Lup’s. 

 

***

 

A couple of hours later, still in the dead of night, Lup woke up and Barry snapped awake as soon as she began to move. She blinked and looked around and then slightly jerked away from Barry, eyeing him over carefully to see how awake he was. He could barely see her in the dark, but he felt it when she suddenly receded from his shoulder and leaned back and away from him. He was struck with cold fear -- he had done it again. He took advantage of the situation, had probably drank a little bit too much on purpose, hadn’t gone to bed when he started to get tired and instead fought to stay awake until everyone else was gone.  _ What was wrong with him. _ He had constructed the whole night so that he would get to be alone and close to Lup, and all of that right after he had had the conversation with himself that he was going to avoid doing anything like that. Because she was his friend. Because she deserved better than that. 

 

Lup was perfectly still, afraid to move because she was  _ so close _ to Barry; so close that moving away would mean brushing up against him, or more. She was still feeling unsteady, and in her position she might have needed to brace herself with an arm against the couch, and with how close they were, that would mean either reaching behind him to push off of the back of the couch, or even needing to grab his shoulder to balance herself. She didn’t know what to do. She felt  _ awful. _ She had encouraged him to drink more than he was typically comfortable with, and then she rough-housed with Taako on top of him, then intentionally situated herself to be sitting close to him, and then didn’t stop herself from staying near him as she noticed herself falling asleep. She felt embarrassed and ashamed at how she had acted; she had  _ just  _ resolved to treat him with more respect and to allow him physical space so that he would be more comfortable, and she already fucked up. 

  
  


The tense moment between them was interrupted by slow, heavy footsteps coming down the hall and a light flicking on. And that’s when they saw Magnus walking into the room and heading for the door to outside. He was walking stiffly, unnaturally, and his face was fixed, his eyes unmoving. 

 

“Hey uhh, Magnus?” Barry knew right away that something was  _ very _ wrong. 

 

Davenport and Lucretia came running in after him, still in their sleep clothes. Both of their quarters were next to his and they had been woken by his loud footsteps. 

 

“Magnus! What is wrong?” Davenport rushed to his side and patted him urgently on his leg, but Magnus didn’t respond in the slightest. He continued to the door and stepped out into the cold, hazy night. 

 

They all gathered at the door and as they looked outside, they were washed over with cold, heart stopping panic. At the end of the ramp, there was an -- incomprehensible being. A thick, swirling cloud of dense white smoke or fog and… it was massive. A towering, hunched over, oppressive figure, taller than the Starblaster. They were glued to the ground, trying frantically to process the shape in front of them, their adrenaline boiling over. As they started to put together the confusing image, they could see that there were no facial features where there probably should have been a face. There were no details of any kind. Only multiple rows of what looked like fist-sized human teeth floating within the towering mass. 

 

The thing was entirely still except for the constant swirling of its semi-translucent, smokey and opalescent innards. Magnus silently and rigidly walked down the ramp, towards the figure. Lucretia broke down into a feverish panic, yelling at Magnus. And then, she moved past the rest of them and ran down the ramp after him. 

 

“Lucretia! No!” Davenport tried to grab at her flowing gown as she ran by, but it just barely escaped his fingers. 

 

She got to Magnus and seized hold of his shoulders and tried to hold him back; but as she fought to dig her heels into the ramp beneath her, she was dragged along with him. Lup went after them next, fire beginning to form in her hands, as Davenport continued to yell at the top of his lungs, ordering them to come back in, to let Magnus go. But, they all ended up clumped together and Barry, seeing Lup about to be in trouble, made his way down the ramp as well. Davenport cursed under his breath and receded into the ship a little bit, still watching in horror from the doorway, still trying to call them back. 

 

The figure pitched forward, seeming to just blink into a different position rather than actually moving. It was leaning over Magnus, Lucretia and Lup, with Barry close behind them. He ran to the side of them and with all of the momentum and strength he could possibly muster, crashed into Lucretia and Magnus, successfully pushing them as a unit hard enough to make them trip and fall off of the side of the ramp and away from the encroaching entity. Then, he placed himself in front of Lup just as the being blinked forward again, its upper half moving closer to the ramp and surrounding Barry within its misty body. And Barry was instantly consumed as the teeth, unmoving, simply touched him. He was pulled into the mist while his flesh disappeared and his skeleton was disassembled, his loose bones left floating within the thick fog of the figure’s body. 

 

And that was when Lup lost her fucking mind. Her hands burst into crackling spheres of blue hot flame and she flung the orbs away from her hands, into the apparition. It went up in the magical fire within in an instant and as it did, it let loose a deep, hollow, rattling bellow and it began to lose its form and evaporate. After the last bit of flame and fog dissipated, its teeth and Barry’s bones were left suspended in mid-air for a moment before clattering to the ground. 

 

Lup fell to her knees while Lucretia and Magnus, who had returned to his senses, scrambled to their feet. Taako showed up at the door behind Davenport, having just been broken out of trance by the noise outside. 

 

***

 

Lup and Lucretia were in the underused office belonging to Davenport. They stood opposite of the desk where he sat, pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed in a frustration that he was trying to calm into a sense of professional disappointment. 

 

“When we have a situation like that, you're going to have to make the hard decision to just let someone go and save yourself. We can’t ever,  _ ever  _ risk losing all of us, or even  _ almost  _ all of us. Luckily Taako was asleep, but if we had been the only ones left, Taako and I would have had to stay holed up inside for  _ five months _ , doing nothing except guarding our lives so that we could make sure we were able to continue on. And I don’t want something like that to happen; not to me, not to any of you.”

 

Lup nodded and Lucretia solemnly hung her head, deeply ashamed, tears forming in her eyes. Lup walked out and Lucretia raised her head to look at her, then looked back to Davenport and quietly apologized, made it clear that she understood, then ran after Lup. 

 

She found Lup sitting at the dining table, her lips drawn into a stern, flat line, eyes staring at nothing, hands on the table gripped into fists. 

 

“Lup… Lup, if I hadn’t run out there… I’m sorry.” 

 

“It’s fine. It was that stupid nerd’s own decision to jump in and save everyone.” 

 

Lup didn’t even turn her head to look at Lucretia. 

 

“Lup, I —“

 

“Lucretia?  _ It’s okay _ .” 

 

Lup’s voice was icy. Lucretia looked defeated. She started to walk back to her room to leave Lup alone just as Taako was walking in to comfort her. Halfway down the hall, she could hear Lup start to sob. 

 

***

 

They didn’t go outside at night. And there were so few daylight hours that it meant they barely ever went outside at all. Knowing the dangers of their current world, they played things as safe as possible, which meant they barely did anything except watch their supplies dwindle. They all but gave up on looking for the light that cycle; if something came up that gave them a lead or if they saw it from the ship as they moved locations, then great. But, they weren’t going to risk sending out teams to look for it. 

 

Lup was milling about the lab, not having anything to do or any reason at all to be there. She just wanted to be in the lab. She felt comforted by it. 

 

She sat, bored and despondent in her swivel chair at the lab workspace. She started pushing herself around in the chair and ended up rolling over by the bookshelf. She looked over the spines and read the titles, looking to see if any of the ones that she hadn’t read yet caught her interest. That’s when she saw something wedged in between “Journal for the History of Astronomy” and “Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion”. She dug her finger in between the books and pulled out a thin, short notebook. It had a dark blue cover and was well loved, the edges softly worn down and the thin strings holding together the middle almost falling apart. She opened it up without thinking, assuming that it was probably notes on one of the books that it sat between. She idly thumbed to the middle of it and started to read. 

 

_ A weeping heat in balance, in harmonies of two _

_ It can balance a third, weaving it into itself _

_ Folding over it in warmth _

_ Warmth that is shared, vital. _

 

_ A fire passes through, changes everything within you, making something new, and leaving heated cinders behind to smolder.  _

 

_ But alone, there is no balance, no peace.  _

_ It is all chaos and the fire spins out of control, reaching its peak until it fills a space with itself _

 

_ A space that can never become small again _

 

_ Until it is all cold once more  _

_ Then  _

_ There is order _

_ Then  _

_ There is quiet  _

 

_ And the universe becomes a stone and it crushes the world. _

 

She felt a strange grip on her heart. The poem was clearly romantic. Was it born of some feeling that he had left behind in their home world? Poor Barry… he was such a sweet soul. She wondered once again what things he might have been taken away from when their world was destroyed; what were the things that she didn’t know, the things too painful for him to ever reveal. 

 

She read over the words again, trying to decipher them, until she felt a vague sense of familiarity. There was something recognizable about the ideas being put forth, as well as the order that those ideas were in. And then, she remembered a conversation that they had had a while back. One where she explained the concepts behind her evocation training, especially in the area of fire manipulation and casting: her specialty. In return, he had spoken at length about the science side of fire.

 

And she realized... his poem was about the fucking rules of thermodynamics. That _nerd_. She laughed at first, but then gave it a little bit more thought. That stuff was his passion. And he was expressing that passion in a creative way. This thing that most people would consider not-so creative, but rather logical and technical and straightforward. For Barry, science was his art, and he treated it as such, and that was beautiful. Watching him work -- it really was an art. The way his hands moved with confidence across his equipment, fluidly, without needing to think, without pause. And then, even _faster_ somehow when he had a really good idea or a break through in something that had been puzzling him. That -- beautiful man with his loving, creative soul had found a way to make something so typically dry and boring and technical just... gorgeous and artful. Maybe that was part of why she learned so much from him, and so fast. Maybe it was why her thirst for knowledge had become voracious around him; why she was impassioned, moved, why she could watch him for hours, listen to him for hours. He explained things with a tone and fervor that she had never heard anyone explain _anything_ with. No one -- no one taught the way he did. It was lyrical, she was just realizing. 

 

That -- fucking beautiful man. That absolutely impressive nerd. 

 

She read over the poem several more times and was about to thumb over to another page when she realized what she was doing; she was pretty heavily invading his privacy. She had gotten so caught up in the words he had written that she forgot about the context under which she was reading them in. She gently returned the slip of a notebook back into place between the two bulky science journals.

 

She thought back to their conversation from years before, when they talked about music and how he had played the piano in their previous life. Knowing about his poeticism and his ability to elegantly frame something that most people would see as boring, she thought about how potentially beautiful his piano skills might be. How beautiful they almost definitely were. And she wondered if she would ever get to hear him play. 


	16. The Eye of the Beholder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Sixteen

 

Barry and Merle were surrounded by the rest of the crew upon regeneration. To the two of them, they were gone for a split second. For the rest, they had been gone so, so long, and they all had been living incomplete lives for nearly half of a year without them. Half of a year that was fraught with dread and spent almost entirely inside of the Starblaster with nothing to think about and no distractions other than fearing what was outside and missing their friends. They were both pulled into a group hug, arms everywhere, shoulders gripped, tangled in a seven person embrace. Barry felt a pit in his stomach when, in the middle of the chaotic welcome, he caught a glimpse of Lup’s face. She maneuvered her way into the group so that she was near him and touched him very lightly on the back as she used one arm to hug him and the other to hug Merle. She leaned away from him and flashed a forced smile. 

“Welcome back.” 

“Lup…” he said her name under his breath before remembering that there were other people around him. Luckily, everyone was happily chatting and he wasn’t heard over the din of cheerful voices. As everyone started to part and make their way either to the couch or dining area or kitchen, Barry just watched to see where Lup was going so that he could try and find a way to casually be near her. 

Something was wrong and he assumed that it was his fault. He needed to find out what it was and what he could do to make her feel better. She ended up on the couch, but Merle and Magnus sat down across from her, settling in to make conversation and pass the time until Taako finished cooking. Barry resolved not to go off on his own and sat down as well, on the same side as Lup, but at the opposite end, giving her space. She looked over at him as he sat down and gave him the same, unconvincing smile, then turned to talk to Merle and Magnus. Barry did his best to just act normal and joined in with them, hoping that he would get to be alone with Lup soon. 

***

Their new planet had nothing in common with anywhere else they had been. The ground was made of a thick, translucent skin, and whirling underneath it was a blindingly bright prismatic liquid. The fluid rushed around individual pockets that encased a separate shining, milky liquid with innards made of curling, red marbled tubes reminiscent of intestines. The landscape raised and dipped dramatically and in some places, there were lofty structures made up of masses of sickly bubbles, like giant warts, all part of the same skin and filled with the same swirling liquid innards. There was just the one thick, gelatinous rind spread over the entire world that formed the ground, the hills, the structures. And then, there was the occasional patch of some sort of fruit; clusters of glowing blue orbs the size of their heads, clinging to each other and not attached to any sort of plant. Just exuding from the ground. They were edible and they had a strange, but not wholly unpleasant taste that was tinny and electric, like licking a battery.

Lup and Barry had been having a blast running tests; it was the most alien planet they had been on so far and every single thing was interesting and new and yielded all kinds of compelling results. They were hoping that with enough time and tests, maybe they could discover some sort of new resource there, something that could be used as a component in future tests or projects or creations. They had been able to extract some of the thick, gritty liquid from within one of the bubbly towers using a long, seven gauge hypodermic needle and syringe -- that was after breaking several other, thinner needles off in the thick, unforgiving skin. When they tested it out in petri dishes filled with agar containing various bacteria, it created zones of inhibition that spiraled out from where the droplet of the sample was placed, all the way to the edges of the dish, and ultimately manifested into thin, lace-like patterns. The liquid was impossible to dilute; any amount of water added to it was assimilated into more of the same strange, viscous fluid. Its pH value fluctuated minute to minute, and the noticeable and heavy sediment within it was in a constant state of suspension; swirling and moving through it even while untouched, never settling to the bottom. Everything about it was puzzling and they didn’t know if it would lead to anything significant or have any practical use, but they were fascinated by it and having fun. 

 

Barry and Lup were practically tripping over each other as they kept coming up with ideas for different combinations of things to test with their new and captivating specimen. They rushed to grab at supplies and pick up notebooks and re-sharpen their pencils again and again. After settling back into their chairs with multiple tests set up and running, Lup was reading something she had just written down, tapping the eraser of her pencil against her lower lip. Her eyes still on her notebook, she absent mindedly reached over for one of the vials with a small, so far untouched sample of the liquid and brushed against Barry’s hand as he simultaneously was reaching for the vial directly next to it. Barry quickly withdrew his hand and muttered an apology. And Lup -- 

 

Lup felt heat rising in her cheeks, and she didn’t know why. She turned and pretended that something she was reading over in her notebook had suddenly caught her attention, nonchalantly continuing to pick up the tube and draw it over to her work area, turning away a bit more, not wanting him to see. 

 

She had just… gotten herself really worked up over that conversation they had and her ensuing actions. That was all. She was feeling embarrassed or nervous way too easily. She just needed to chill out and get back to acting natural around him, minus the overbearing amount of touching. That was all. 

 

Meanwhile, Barry was turned the other way, trying to get himself back to being engrossed in the tests that he was nose deep in only a second before. While willing away the tell-tale redness he could feel blooming on his face, he cursed at himself for being distracted, again. Lup deserved better than that. She was trying to learn and to work, and he was essentially robbing her of her time whenever he got distracted and slowed them down. He knew he should be making the most out of their time working, out of their time being together as friends; but he was wasting it and being selfish. He wished that he could just hurry up and get over the feelings he was working through and get back to acting and feeling natural. He wanted so desperately to be her best friend, to be the person that she said she admired and trusted and respected. He needed to be deserving of those feelings, needed to be  _ respectable. _ And he couldn’t do that if there were moments like the one that had just happened where he couldn’t even look at her or speak. It wasn’t behavior worthy of respect. It wasn’t appropriate. 

 

He couldn’t get himself to return his focus to what he was just doing. He took a moment to let his nerves stop buzzing, then turned back to Lup. 

 

“Hey, uh. I’m sorry -- by the way. If I did something? I-It seemed kind of like you were uh… not okay? Umm, last week, when we got here.” Barry braced himself; he was sure that she must have been upset about the drunken situation they had ended up in. Upset at him for crossing a line. For waiting until they were both drunk to try and get closer to her again after she had started pulling away, which she had probably been doing for a reason. He must have behaved like the absolute worst from her perspective.

 

Lup opened her mouth to respond, about to deny that anything was wrong. But then she just sighed and looked at her feet. 

 

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It just -- it sucks when someone is gone. You just ran out there and threw yourself into the damn thing. And it was good that you did! Like, I know that you helped and it would have been a lot worse if more of us had died. And I did the wrong thing, too and ran out there after Luc and Mags, and  _ someone  _ was gonna die, if not all of us. Logically, it turned out probably the best it could have considering how we all reacted. But, it was just easier to deal with the whole thing by... being kind of mad at you.” 

 

Barry was taken over by a sinking feeling. She was mad at him. For months. Maybe even still? He fucked up. He really fucked up. He thought he was helping, but…

 

Lup read the look on his face right away. “Barry, no, you’re good. I’m not mad at you now, and I wasn’t  _ really _ before. I was coping. We had literally just finished processing a death and then that whole horrifying situation happened. I was angry at Luc, too. It was just -- excess emotions that had to go somewhere. Please understand.”

 

Barry nodded his head and pulled himself together for her. “I get it. It’s -- weird, I guess, how no time passes for us when we die. And then you're just suddenly back and it’s hard to imagine that time actually did pass and you just weren’t there for it. But everyone else was. I’m sorry you had to deal with that, Lup. You definitely had a right to be upset.” 

 

She smiled, appreciative of Barry’s sincerity. “It’s okay. We’re all back together now.”  

 

***

 

Lup fitfully rustled around under the covers in their bed. Taako was lying on his stomach at the other end, reading a book and every once in a while shooting Lup a side-eyed glance whenever she abruptly turned over and jostled the entire bed. 

 

She had been doing her best to treat Barry better ever since their talk in the lab. She gave him breathing room and was helpful and professional when working with him;  _ respectful _ . But she noticed that ever since she had decided to refrain from touching him, she had the overwhelming impulse to get her hands all over him, and with no idea where that feeling was coming from. She had gotten so comfortable and used to being in close proximity to him and touching him the same way she did everyone else. Sometimes her touches were just to indicate something, sometimes to play around with him, sometimes to intentionally fluster him; and because of that, she probably actually touched him  _ more _ than everyone else. The reactions that he had — she was endlessly entertained by. But, once she had realized that doing that was displaying a severe lack of respect for him and had stopped touching him entirely, she had started to have itchy trigger fingers. 

 

Her hands were drawn to him. She felt like she  _ needed  _ to touch his hair, to squeeze his shoulder, to quickly and playfully scratch his scruff as she walked past him, to lean against him, to draw close and poke him in the arm when she wanted his attention, to rest her chin on his shoulder when she was closely watching something he was doing, to dig her fingers into his adorably squishy sides and tease out his ticklish spots and then run away when she was feeling particularly hyper. Or, to maybe even leave her hands there against those adorably squishy sides and slide her arms around him to hug him. He had nearly jumped out of skin once when she had tried to hug him. She should have known then how uncomfortable she had been making him. 

 

He was just  _ so  _ comfy, and warm, and soft. Every time she found herself cold or sore from a hard day of work or overly tired and frazzled, she really  _ really  _ wanted to ask to platonically cuddle him. She was struck by the memory of the camping trip where she selfishly asked to be warmed by him and, with a wave of shame, realized how self-centered she was and how oblivious she had been to his feelings and wondered how wildly uncomfortable she had made him that time. 

 

She figured that the reason for wanting to touch him so badly was coming from her decision to stop. She just wanted to do what she knew she couldn’t. She had crossed a line that last year and was still feeling the sting of embarrassment from it. 

 

That feeling sucked. She needed to do something badass, something fun, something to feel connected to herself again, to get out of the negative, worrisome thinking pattern she was in. She needed to go blast something. 

 

Lup rolled herself up to a sitting position and bounced out of bed. Taako closed his book and flipped himself over.

 

“What is up with you?” 

 

Lup smoothed down her hair and started to weave it into a quick, clumsy braid. “I’m feeling like fucking something up. Wanna come?” 

 

“Oh hell yeah, LuLu.” Taako rolled out of bed and stood up, straightening his blouse. “I’m down to raise some hell; I’m straight creeped by this place. Let’s fuckin’ light shit up!” 

 

***

 

Davenport sighed into his stone of farspeech. “Damn it, Merle.” 

 

Magnus and Barry went out looking for Merle after he had been gone several hours without checking or saying where he was going or what he was doing, which was a frustratingly frequent occurrence. He would finish something he was working on and just wander off, wanting to enjoy the scenery or go for an aimless walk. Which was fine, it just made sense to let everyone else know what you were doing when exploring alien planets. 

 

They were less than an hour’s walk from the ship when they came upon a particularly crowded area of bubbly columns. Walking into the center of it, they found an unmoving, stone dwarf. Magnus let out a sigh of relief. It was still an upsetting scene, but he was just happy that it wasn’t gory or that he wasn’t having to actively watch someone die again. The scenes that he witnessed the year prior were understandably haunting him still.

 

“Well, uh, shit. So… probably not a good thing that we don’t know how this happened.” Barry knelt over to examine Merle, being careful to keep an eye on the area around them, making sure there were no signs of anything they hadn’t seen before, like something that could be touched or inhaled in that might have caused the petrification. 

 

He pulled some gloves out of his robe pocket then reached for a scraper and a jar from his pack. He leaned in towards Merle with the scraper in hand, then caught Magnus’s face and the look of deep concern he had. 

 

“I’m -- I’m just going to take it from his clothes, don’t worry.” Barry scraped at Merle’s stone sleeve until he was able to gather some small chips in a jar. 

 

Back on board, Barry sat in the lab, idly looking at the contents of the sample jar from the Merle statue they had found earlier, his face resting in his palm, elbow in the counter, shaking the jar a bit in the other hard to turn over the pieces and observe them. He was too absent-minded to really be figuring anything significant out. He realized how unfair it was to everyone for him to be wasting time, caught up in his own thoughts, and not fulfilling the role that he was there to fulfill. He took a deep breath and resolved to stop being distracted and to get down to what he did best; running an inordinate amount of tests, whether they seemed to be helpful and make sense or not. Sometimes, his biggest discoveries came from things that seemed entirely unnecessary to do. After that happening to him a few times, he got into the habit of overkill. Which meant that the way he would be spending his time for the rest of the day had been decided.

 

Barry set to work, digging into drawers and cupboards, pulling out a microscope and a sample splitter, and then started prepping labels and vials. He had to focus. He was supposed to be working. He  _ needed  _ to be working. He needed to be occupied, distracted, anything, until they found Taako and Lup. 

 

There was just -- way too much time left in the year to be without them. They  _ had  _ to be okay.

 

***

 

Davenport flew them another hop in the direction they had picked to start their aimless search for the light, and as they traveled they saw something crop up in the distance -- something different than anything they had seen on the planet in their three months there. 

 

There was what looked to be a large settlement, completely enclosed within a circular wall with a single towering and elaborate gate. Everything within the walls was being actively destroyed. They were flying low enough to be able to watch as buildings crumbled while others went up in flames within an instant. There was a multitude of... some sort of beings floating towards the gate from outside of the city. Barry ran to the window that had their telescope in front of it and was chilled by what he saw. The beings were floating, fleshy orbs wrapped around a giant eyeball and covered in independently moving stalks, each topped with their own, smaller eyeballs. There was a large group of them that all looked identical, but they were slowly being surrounded by other orbs that were each distinctly different from any of the other ones. They fought aggressively against each other, the different ones killing any they could of the group and of each other, as well. 

 

As they flew directly above them, the ship was filled with the muffled sounds of sizzling, zapping, static, and sharp buzzes with heavy, dull humming undertones that steadily increased in volume until they could feel it in their bones. It had to have been  _ fucking loud _ for them to hear it from inside the ship. It was unthinkable what it must have been like outside. As they passed overhead, they were a little bit too low -- and they caught the attention of a handful of the orbs. As the creatures turned upwards and started coming after them, Barry could see the wide open mouths underneath the giant eyes of the orbs, frantically gnashing with long, needle-like teeth. They started to float up, towards the ship, and before Davenport could react, they each had a single stalk that whipped in front of the others and released a rust-red beam of sluggish light. They felt the ship warming up. And the zapping noise became louder and was accompanied by a persistent popping. And the ship continued to get hotter. Magnus and Barry ran to Davenport, yelling unintelligibly, none of them able to hear one another over the cacophonous collection of stressful, overlapping noises. Davenport pulled the ship up as sharply as he safely could, leaving the creatures behind, the wheel almost burning his hands at that point. 

 

They got away, and the ship cooled back to its normal temperature and the noise subsided as the raised city faded from view. Barry and Magnus sat down in the small area of open floor behind Davenport and next to Lucretia in the control room, feeling the need to just be close together. They were all silent as Davenport piloted them onward, at a higher elevation, while Lucretia jotted away in her journal, seemingly unshaken.  

 

Davenport worried over the condition of the ship after that encounter. But even stronger than that worry was a dark fear that had been brewing in him since the previous year and that had been reignited by the incident that had just passed. What if they ended up somewhere where something could make its way into the ship, or that could kill them from the outside while they were in the ship? How could they keep anyone alive if that happened? He had had constant nightmares in the last cycle, frequently waking up in a sweat, swearing that he heard a strange, otherworldly noise knocking around inside somewhere. As the fear and stress built in him and as he lost more and more sleep, he had started to have even more disturbing experiences. He started waking up, but being unable to move; stuck with his eyes open, voiceless, muscles locked. There were panicked, futile attempts to struggle, and then -- every time it happened, he would see something. A dark figure moving from corner to corner in his room, blending into the shadows except for its glowing eyes. Or once, there was a crawling mist that phased through his window and he watched helplessly as it wandered to his door, making its way out of his room, towards the others. And other times, there would be -- some _ thing.  _ An incomprehensible shape made up of an indiscernible matter, flashing and twitching with static, standing on the bed and looking down at him. And every time that he would finally fight awake, he knew that none of it had been real. But during those episodes, nothing felt more real. And at odd moments throughout the day, he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe somehow, they were. 

  
  


***

 

They were pretty far away from their original landing point, which made what they found even more strange. They had been searching for any sign of the light, and somehow instead made the most coincidental discovery, considering that there was an entire planet to explore. Barry and Magnus reported in on their stones to Davenport, a bit of protocol that was going to be discussed as becoming mandatory once everyone was together again. Three of them had been lost that year so far, and they had all just wandered off without saying anything, without ever calling in and updating anyone on their location. 

 

Where the hell had they gone and why hadn’t they told anyone? Barry knew that that time, he was the one with the right to be mad. But he couldn’t be. He just wanted them back. And he knew it was unfair and hated knowing it and didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but -- he wanted Lup back most of all. 

 

Davenport’s voice came in over their stones; he made the decision that it was obviously much too dangerous to get anywhere near the cave opening that Barry and Magnus discovered. Barry understood, and his rational mind agreed, but looking at the stony faces of Taako, Lup and Merle filled him with an unfamiliar sensation of anger. He wanted to march into the cave and fucking destroy whatever had done that. Whatever it was hadn’t just killed them; it wasn’t self defense or fear or outright hostility. It killed them and then turned them into decor outside of the ornate, carved mouth of its cavernous home, somehow carrying their stone bodies miles from their origin point, just to make a mockery of them. And that infuriated Barry. He was upset that they were impossible to take back with them, upset that he couldn’t do anything to investigate what happened or know who or what had done that to them. He couldn’t do  _ anything _ , and that well known to him, abysmal, gut wrenching feeling of uselessness crept up. He swallowed the lump in his throat and refused to give into it; Lup wouldn’t want him to. He channeled it all into anger, instead. A difficult task for Barry. 

 

Magnus noticed that Barry was fuming next to him. “Yeah, I get it. This is rough. Look, I don’t like it either but we’ve gotta listen to Cap'n Port and get out of here. We have to stick around and protect who we’ve got left.” Magnus firmly pat Barry’s back twice and then started along the path back towards the ship. 

 

They walked in silence for almost an hour. Barry’s mind was racing, his pace was determined and his footfall hard against the ground. Everything in him was tense as he thought about how the rest of the year might play out. 

 

“Hey, Magnus? Do you ever think about what’ll happen if we don’t make it one of these times?” 

 

Magnus seemed shaken out of his own deep thoughts and slowed his pace a little bit as he glanced over at Barry. He looked saddened by the question and right away Barry regretted bringing up such a negative and hopeless topic. 

 

“Shit, I’m sorry, Magnus. That -- that’s not the greatest thing to talk about right now.” 

 

Magnus shook his head. “No, it’s a real thing. Whether or not it’s a good time to talk about it, it’s something that could happen. And yeah, I’ve thought about it and, I don’t know. It would just... suck.” Magnus hung his head and thought for a moment before perking up. “But, honestly Barry, I really don’t think that’s going to happen. I think we’re gonna figure this out and be okay. I think we’re gonna save a lot of lives eventually. We have to. There must be a reason that we’ve survived as long as we have and that we have this chance to fight back. We’ll get there. And we’ll get there together. I know it.” 

 

Barry stopped in his tracks. Looking at his feet, he smiled deeply while tears formed at the corners of his eyes. Magnus stopped as well and watched him, worried. Barry looked up at Magnus with watery eyes, still smiling, and laughed softly. 

 

“Hey, bud. Can I give you a hug for that?” 

 

Magnus’s face lit up. “Only if I can get a high five, too!” 

 

***

 

It was almost time, again. And, like the previous year, they were more than ready to leave that plane. According to their count, it should have been the last day. When they felt the temperature start to drop around mid-afternoon, they knew they were right.

 

“Hey uh, Cap'n Port? You and Luc don’t really need us for this last part now that we’re almost out of here, yeah?”

 

“I suppose not, Magnus. Why do you ask?” 

 

Magnus looked back at Barry over his shoulder and smiled. “Barry and I wanna try something.”

 

...

 

Just as they heard the first thunderous boom of the Hunger entering the plane, they reached the cave opening. Barry looked at Magnus with a huge grin. 

 

“Ready?” 

 

Magnus set a hand on his ax. “Let’s do this!” 

 

Entering the cave, Barry couldn’t help but feel anxious. Knowing that he’d be alive again, almost instantly from his perspective, didn’t make the prospect of potentially dying any less terrifying. Survival instincts don’t care about outlying circumstances like immortality. The cave had a single straight path through a neatly carved out tunnel. They walked along as stealthily as the two most un-stealthy members of the crew could, until they made their way to a dark green, jewel encrusted door. Magnus pushed the door open and entered first. 

 

An orb was rushing at them before they could even process what it was that was stirring in the room they had just entered. With it directly in front of them, they could see its bubbling wet and charred black skin, interrupted by the occasional patch of black opal scales. The giant eye in the center of its body was a dark, dirty green with whites that were filled with shaky, red lines, as if the eye had never blinked. The eyes at the ends of the stalks loomed over them, almost scraping the ceiling of the cave. The mouth hung open, dry and taking heaving, snarling breaths that sharply whistled as they passed through its mass of thin, jagged, overlapping teeth. 

 

…

 

Between Barry’s newfound combative magic skills and Magnus’s brute strength, they managed to heavily damage the orb. But when Magnus swung his ax through two of the stalks, separating them from the screeching sphere, the stubs erupted with green, steaming fluid that covered the both of them, poisoning them and sending them reeling against the cave wall where they slumped to the ground. The creature started to float over to them when a large shadow darted into the room. Barry and Magnus watched as the shadow took on a humanoid shape and grew tall, hunching over once its head hit the ceiling, looming behind the orb. It pulled back an arm and its hand morphed into a serrated spike and cleanly, without a hint of resistance, pierced through the spherical beast, drenching them in the acidic, poisonous fluid. The shadow drew the spike back into itself and moved around the motionless orb. It lurched towards Magnus and Barry and they saw it twitch and rear back its head. Then two streams of black shadow shot towards them. 

 

And then, they were back on the deck of the Starblaster. 

 

Barry could have cried at the sight of Lup’s face. It was a miracle that he didn’t. 

  
  
  
  
  



	17. And... She Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Seventeen

 

 

“Wow! That sure is something, huh?” 

 

Merle had his entire face and both hands pressed against the window as they flew by a massive, towering, tiered structure that rose up out of a deep pit in the ground. The land around it was veined with a network of streams, eventually narrowing into a single river that ran into a large pool surrounding the pit. The water foamed and churned at the edge, turning a brilliantly gleaming white under the midafternoon sun before careening down over the edge and into the void encircling the city. Along the tiers that extended far up into the sky were shining spots of brassy metal surrounded by plush swaths of bright green moss. Lucretia looked out the same window, over the top of Merle’s head, while sketching out the scene before them. 

 

Barry and Lup were in the cockpit with Davenport, making note of their location so that they could return to the area later -- they wanted to try at least a little bit more searching for the light before checking out the city, especially since they had confirmation that the planet didn’t seem to be completely empty. They weren’t able to see much, but there was definitely movement and signs of life coming from the tiered structure. 

 

They didn’t have to travel much further before they came across a vast expanse of dense, dark green forest. Barry shrugged as he looked down at it. 

 

“Well. It’s as good a place as any.” 

 

***

 

Barry and Lup set out on their trek, laden down with tools for collecting and mapping and navigating. Davenport continued to circle above the forest in case they could spot any sign of the light from above, but the treetops were unforgivably thick. The crew updated Barry and Lup on their location as they stopped periodically along the edges of the forest, scavenging and stocking up on whatever they could. 

 

The two of them marched happily along; the trail through the woods was unchallenging, the weather was warm and the tree cover kept things pleasantly cool, and they revelled in each other’s company. 

 

...

  
  


“And that is how Taako and I got blacklisted from the library.”

 

Barry had been laughing through most of Lup’s story, tears in his eyes.

 

“I can’t believe some of the stuff that Taako says,” Barry spoke through gasps. “And it’s the way he says it, too; he’s not even trying to be funny. Who else could put together a sentence like ‘that’s a book that’ll make you smart enough to fuck the moon‘ and say it with a straight face?” 

 

“I mean,” Lup pointed a finger to herself, “you know this girl can pull that off, too.” 

 

“True,” Barry nodded at her. “The two of you are damn treasures, that’s for sure.” 

 

Lup skipped happily at Barry’s words, her thumbs hooked behind the straps of her hiking backpack. “You’re so sweet, Barold. Like, all of the time. I don’t know how you do it.” 

 

“Heh. I-I… I don’t know,” Barry rubbed the back of his neck as he blushed and stumbled over his words. “I’m -- I’ve been an ass before, I’m sure.”

 

“Well, I think I’ve  _ kinda sorta known you for a while _ , and I haven’t seen it.” She flashed a smile at him, then paused for a moment, thinking. “So. Tell me about a time where you  _ were  _ an ass.” 

 

Barry panicked, trying to think of something to tell Lup that didn’t have to do with all of the times he felt like he had messed up with her. 

 

“Uhhh -- hmm. Well, uh -”

 

“See!” Lup stopped short with a hop and turned to Barry. “You can’t even think of anything!” 

 

“No, uh, just -- uh, let’s see. Oh. Umm, okay. So, Merle had been pestering me all day about uh, seeing if I could put together some kind of salves he could keep on hand, right? This was when we were in our ninth year, and I was -- y’know, I wasn’t doing well, so I just really wasn’t having it with him constantly bugging me.”  

 

Lup nodded, “Okay, okay. So, how did sweet, non-confrontational Barry retaliate?”

 

“Well, I just uh -- I told him I couldn’t do it without those, um… you remember those sort of like, long sort of fleshy leaves?”

 

Lup snorted. “The ones with the thorns?” 

 

“Yeah. And they were kinda hard to reach? I uh, told him I couldn’t make the stuff he wanted without those -- the day that he was really bugging me uh, that day everyone was already doing their own thing, so... he had to, um. He had to go on his own.”  

 

“Bar-ry!” she mockingly scolded him. “I cannot be- _ lieve _ that! You? Really?  _ My _ Barold?” 

 

Barry shrugged, softly chuckling. “He pissed me off! And there was no harm in it. I mean, unless he died, which about half an hour later, I was terrified that was gonna happen. But, he just came back all scratched up and dirty. I uh, still felt kinda guilty, though.” Barry shortly exhaled through his nose in an almost-laugh. “But it  _ was  _ funny.”  

 

“That is  _ amazing,  _ I love it. Love that dude but he does  _ not  _ know when to quit sometimes.” Lup laughed, then stopped short. “--Wait. Wasn’t that also the year that you spent a bunch of time figuring out how to make cigars from the local plants? For Merle?” 

 

“Y-yeah. It was.”

 

Lup exploded into body-shaking giggles, “See, Barold! You can’t even pull off a prank without being nice right after!” 

 

“I felt bad!” 

 

Lup slapped her knee and hopped up and down. Her laugh echoed through the trees. And Barry laughed with her. 

  
  


***

  
  


“Lup and I are going scraaappiiiiing!” 

 

“Scrap scrap scrap scrap scrap!” Lup danced out the door with Taako, who started chanting along with her while throwing his arms up. 

 

Davenport tried calling after them. “Be, uh --” and the side exit door slammed behind them. “-careful.” 

 

The rest of the crew continued to plan their day after the twins ran out to start their self-imposed task. Magnus had some grandiose idea about building an arm on the ship with the help of the robotic citizens. It sounded -- difficult, but if it did work, being able to grab the light without getting out of the ship would certainly prove useful the next time they encountered a world on the more hostile side. 

 

Barry decided to do something he didn’t normally do and wandered around the city. He socialized with some of the robots, observed how things were built and organized, and took in the unbelievably beautiful sights available from the vantage point that the towering city offered. When the afternoon was well underway and the sun was directly overhead, the waterfall below turned a strikingly bright white and blue, like liquid lightning thrashing and pouring into the pit below. 

 

From where he was, looking out over the grated railing at the edge of the tier, Barry could see below where Lup stood amongst piles of scrap metal. She somehow kept finding gun after gun and was emptying them into the air with reckless abandon while Taako struggled to breathe through fits of laughter. Gods, she was beautiful and hilarious and terrifying. It was going on eight years since it started, and it hadn’t gotten any easier. His feelings only weighed on him more, and as he found new ways to admire her nearly every day, he couldn’t help but sometimes fall into a despondent state at the sheer impossibility of his feelings. There wasn’t room in his body to hold those feelings anymore. And he didn’t know where they could even go.

 

He knew that he needed to resign himself to painful longing because he wasn’t about to put any of that on Lup. He was also not going to push her away or reject her friendship or her work; her friendship meant everything to him, and working with her wasn’t just only more productive than on his own, it was the most fun he had ever had. But, there was a fiery pain with her being so near him all the time; in laughing with her and talking to her. He loved those things, and they would have to be enough. They  _ were _ enough. She didn’t need to be or do anything more; she was  _ Lup _ . And he got to see Lup, every day. 

 

The pain would subside eventually. He would just have to work through it, for her. And he was confident that he could do damn near anything for her. He could even survive the deep, gut wrenching ache in the core of his being for her. 

 

***

 

After her day of scrapping with Taako, Lup found herself feeling sore and tired, but for her, that was a good feeling. It was relaxing and satisfying to have the physical proof of accomplishing a full day of work. Her muscles felt loose and she already knew that she was going to sleep amazingly that night and wake up with a voracious appetite. She looked forward to it. 

 

Lup and Taako had picked up a lot of useful items, and they also had a  _ lot  _ of fun. There could never be enough time with her brother. One of the handful of things that gave her comfort whenever she started along a negative path of thinking about the Hunger, about the worlds that ended, about their future -- was that she was getting essentially bonus time with her brother. They had already lived long lives, and had a lot left to go, but the years of resetting and not aging didn’t count towards that. She had seventeen more years with Taako than life would have normally allowed for. And that was a gift. 

 

Taako had gone to their room to put himself back together as he normally insisted on after a day of work. Despite her physical exhaustion and messy hair, Lup felt energetic and wanted to keep going, keep doing things, keep having fun. So, she started searching for Barry. 

 

Full of energy from the high of adrenaline that she was riding, she bolted up spiral staircases, ran across creaking metal bridges, and skidded onto the platform of the upper tier. The level was home to a variety of shops, cafes, and restaurants where the robotic inhabitants mimed past human behaviors, dressed up and eating in fancy dining settings and sipping empty tea cups. Lup looked through a window of one of the cafes as she passed by and caught a glimpse of Davenport and Lucretia engaged in what looked like pleasant conversation with several humanoid, shining robotic frames housing the spirits of long dead bodies. 

 

Lup wandered the city, enjoying the gentle warmth of the sun as it shone down through metal slats above, the crisp air that rushed through the outer platform of the tier, and the sound of water crashing down below. The green of the moss everywhere was spectacularly vibrant against the brassy walls peeking out from underneath wherever the verdant carpet allowed it to. It was the most beautiful place with the kindest occupants of anywhere they had been. It was so nice to not be afraid, to have everyone together, to have not had any close calls. And it was nearing the end of the year, which was good in the sense that there wasn’t a lot of time left for things to go sideways -- but, they hadn’t found the light. Of course. The most pleasant world they had been on in a while and they didn’t find the light. And they had no way of knowing exactly what that meant for the planes they left behind. 

 

When Lup found Barry, he was sitting on a bench that overlooked the distant network of streams. In the oncoming sunset, they lit up and looked like veins of silver spreading as far into the distance as they could see. She sat down beside him, noticing how calm he was, alone, watching the sunset, deep in thought. 

 

“Penny for your thoughts?” 

 

He wasn’t taken by surprise at her sudden appearance for once, and continued looking out at the landscape. “Heh. I don’t know. Thinking about the absurdity of existence? Something kind of like that.” 

 

Lup let out a slight laugh under her breath. “So deep, Barold.” 

 

“I know.” Barry turned to look at Lup. “I can be a real downer, huh?” He gave her a smile that told her he was joking.

 

Lup gently laughed before leaning back, placing her hands behind her head, and looking out to the glittering landscape in front of them. “Yeah. You sure do know how to set a mood.” 

 

They sat in calm silence together, watching as the sky turned deeper shades of red while the shine left the surface of the water and was replaced with shadows.

 

As the cool air of the evening, heavy with the smell and sound of running water began to drift their direction, Lup sighed deeply. 

 

“Existence  _ is  _ absurd, isn’t it?”

 

“Ours definitely is, at least.” Barry shifted his weight and set his elbows on the back of the bench, his hands hanging down. “And it’s just. Really strange thinking about even having had a life before this one. Seventeen years is a -- that’s a chunk of change right there, at least for a human.”

 

“Yeah…” Lup’s voice trailed off and left a distinct moment of silence between them before continuing. “What do you think you would have been doing now?’

 

Barry leaned forward, crossing his arms in front of him and put on his thinking face. “Like right now? Right this second?”

 

Lup laughed. “Sure, why not?” 

 

“Well, let’s see. The sun just went down.”

 

“Mmhmm.”

 

“And it was a beautiful day.”

 

“Right,” Lup coaxed him on. 

 

“And I’m…” Barry mimed adding up numbers with his fingers, “sixty five.”

 

“Okayyy.” Lup was excited to see where he was going.

 

“I would have to say that I am -- gee, right now?”

 

Lup laughed, “Yes, Barold.” 

 

“Hmm. Probably getting home from work. And microwaving a Hot Pockket.” 

 

“Ooh, what kind?” 

 

“Yknow. I kinda like those spinach ones.”

 

Lup made a disgusted face. “Really? Those are the  _ worst!”  _

__

 

Barry chuckled. “Well. Gotta stay healthy, eat your vegetables, right?” 

 

“Ew. I can’t believe I’m friends with you.” Lup smiled from the corner of her mouth. “Okay, if you could eat anything at all from home world right now, what would it be?” 

 

“Ooh. Hmm, let me think. Maybe like, cake? Or just... oh shit no, I know --  _ tiramisu _ .” 

 

Lup clasped her hands together and closed her eyes, conjuring the image of the dessert. “Oh maaan, I would kill for that right about now.”

 

“Well. Hopefully you don’t have to murder anyone and we come across a plane where it exists one of these days.”

 

“Yeah. Maybe.” 

 

A solemn air hung over them as they grew quiet once again.

 

“Well,” Barry broke the silence, “what would  _ you  _ have been doing right now?”

 

“Oh, partying, for sure,” Lup didn’t skip a beat with her response. “I’d be elbow deep in cool ranch dip, throwing back jello shots, charmin’ the pants off of everyone. You know me.” 

 

While Barry was laughing, Lup’s demeanor shifted and she paused, looking blankly back out into the dark landscape. 

 

“We never would have met, huh?” 

 

Barry sighed. “Yeah, I uh -- I guess not… woulda been my loss, yknow, for never really going out.”

 

They both pondered the thought; it was absurd, unthinkable that they wouldn’t have known each other, that they wouldn’t have been friends. It seemed impossible. 

 

“I-I’m, uh -- I’m really glad that I know you, Lup.” 

 

Lup turned to look back at Barry, her smile soft, eyes half-lidded, exhaustion finally starting to catch up with her. 

 

“Me too.” 

  
  


***

 

Merle could tell that Lucretia wasn’t very confident, but he wasn’t sure why. He had watched her accomplish so much over the years and she acted like it was nothing because it was ‘just writing’. But, Merle found that to be very important; there had been so many unbelievable things that happened to them that he had already forgotten about until he was reminded by thumbing through some of her journals. Or, things that had happened while he was dead that he never would have known because there was always just too much to catch up on when they regenerated. He found the fact that there was a detailed, running record of their time together mindblowing, and was amazed at her attention to detail. He noticed her ability to capture not only what they did, but their emotions, their expressions, their humor, the tones of their voices; every little thing that made each of them unique shone through the words that she committed to paper. 

 

There was only one major detail missing from her manuscripts; her. It had been bothering Merle and he had been meaning to spend more time with Lucretia, in large part because he felt that she was missing from their history so far. That year seemed good to him, considering that he wasn’t dead and that they could roam around without too much fear of sudden disaster. 

 

They started off by going to the cafes of which there were plenty; it seemed to be one of the favorite pastimes of the robots. They were all always busy with customers, carrying out empty cups, some sitting across from each other at a small table for two, holding hands over the tabletop. Others played chess or read books in the corner, mugs sitting in front of them for hours at a time. 

 

“So, Lucretia. When we’re not all hanging out together and you’re not working, what do you do for fun? I feel like I’ve never heard you talking about any hobbies or interests or things you like to do.” 

 

Lucretia looked surprised by the question and fumbled trying to think of an answer. 

 

“Well, Merle, I uh -- I suppose I don’t really do much for fun. Usually, when I’m not with you all, I’m going over my notes and cleaning things up.” 

 

“Well that’s no good!” Merle looked almost offended. “You and I, we’ve gotta hang out more. You need to be having fun sometimes, too. Otherwise, you’re gonna look back and have a lot of boring memories and you don’t want that. Ya gotta get out there, have some of your own adventures!” 

 

Lucretia laughed softly and nodded. “I guess I could try that. Though, I really  _ do  _ enjoy writing.” 

 

“Well, you should do what you like to do. But don’t be afraid to try something different, sometimes.” 

 

“You’re right, Merle. I’ll keep that in mind.” Lucretia smiled and shook her head a bit, wondering why Merle seemed so concerned about her, but also finding it sweet. 

…

 

Lucretia and Merle spent the better part of their afternoon with a spirit inhabiting a particularly minimalistic robotic frame that led them through a small museum on the upper level of the city. The building’s ceiling was comprised of multiple skylights that allowed floods of radiant sunlight to pour into the museum. The natural light lended a soft, ethereal glow to the paintings and sculptures within. 

 

Merle seemed suddenly drawn to a particular piece and waved the robot over. “What about this painting?” 

 

“Ah, yes. Remarkable realism in that one, and it has a significant piece of history behind it. It is a bit of a longer story, if that is alright?”

 

Merle looked excited. “Shoot.” 

 

The robot continued, chatting away in its tinny voice --

 

“So, it begins with these three adventurers; a tavern keeper, a monk, and an extremely handsome bard…”

  
  


***

  
  


Lup was distressed. In disbelief. Even Magnus had been indifferent to the idea of extinguishing hundreds of souls. How did  _ he  _ become jaded? Or were they all just conveniently emotionally distant from the inhabitants of that world because they looked like robots? They were living spirits. They deserved better than that. They deserved better than what was about to happen to them -- so many souls, already gone from so many other worlds… they  _ all  _ deserved better. She could’ve cried if she hadn’t been so angry and determined to show strength in the face of the fucked up situation that unfolded itself in front of her. 

 

Lup had firmly stood her ground. She knew it was  _ wrong. _ Why wasn’t anyone else acting like it was wrong? They still barely knew anything about the Hunger; it could just be enveloping and holding all of those worlds, or it could be like the crystal -- brimming with souls that, if the Hunger were defeated, could be released and placed into vessels. 

 

_ When  _ the Hunger  _ is _ defeated. She knew she had to hold on to that thought and never say ‘if’. It was going to happen. They were going to do it. They  _ had  _ to do it. They were the only ones who had been given that chance. 

 

Ultimately, she was relieved that her brother came up with an alternate solution that was fair to everyone. Her brother was so intelligent, and she loved his big stupid brain; but she was going to need a moment to get over how agreeable and enthusiastic he was to just outright destroy a civilization. She knew he was a pragmatist when it came down to tough decisions, but knowing that didn’t make it any less difficult to see that side come out during situations like that one. She expected it from Davenport, but Taako…  She just… needed to focus on the fact that he  _ didn’t  _ do it, and that he came up with probably what was the best solution possible. 

 

She inhaled deeply. And got to work executing Taako’s plan, side by side with her brother, doing what they could to make the best out of a completely fucked situation. 

  
  


***

 

While they were all gone, exploring the watery depths of the city, Barry was kicking himself over not knowing how to do something so basic, like swimming. He had been nose-deep in books and lab work and had been picking up entirely new skills with Taako, but he hadn’t stopped to think about the sort of base level survival skills he might need that he was lacking from having lived a life in libraries and study halls and labs. He was so damn soft; he was picking up a little bit of momentum in being more useful out in the field -- more useful to Lup -- and just forgot that there was that lack of a simple skill looming over his head. At least he had played it off well enough that it wasn’t known to everyone -- at least he was pretty sure he had. He’d have to take the time to learn later, hopefully without embarrassing himself. 

__

 

He wondered how long they would be. He didn’t like being on the ship alone; the idea of something happening and him being the only one left, having the entire weight of their survival on his shoulders -- it made him tense just thinking about it. He really admired Davenport and appreciated the gravity of his responsibility. It made him feel bad for having ever complained about anything that he had to do. Nothing,  _ nothing _ was more important than getting them all out alive at the end of each year. 

 

When Davenport was the first to return to the ship, Barry was finally able to exhale and untense his nervous body. After Lucretia and Merle returned, Barry could tell that something must have happened while they were gone. There was an air of sadness around them, a cloud hanging over them. Though, it could just have been because the Hunger was due soon, and they had no way of saving the soft green world that they had found such kind souls in, that they had made friends in. 

 

Barry received mere nods and polite acknowledgements from the three crew members before they went off to their separate quarters. Barry decided to step outside on his own, with them being safely back on board and obviously not in the mood to talk. 

 

Walking out into the night, aimlessly wandering along creaking scaffolding that led to wide open streets lined with closed shops, Barry’s thoughts drifted to Lup, as they always did. With the free, peaceful sensation of the clear, cool night air, Barry’s thoughts leaned towards the blissful. He was getting to experience a feeling that he had never been close to before. That in itself was amazing. Even if it hurt sometimes, it was an experience, it was something new, it was a markedly different stage of his life. Feeling his heart swell and sink and quicken and slow to a crawl -- he wouldn’t trade that for anything. It felt like it somehow made him more human. It was an addition to his spirit, his soul. It was a weight that he would gladly carry for the rest of his life.  

 

And, he had learned a lesson. Back on their home world, he had never even really considered what he was missing out on, what else there might have been outside of himself and outside of his routines. It simply never occurred to him. What he did day in and day out, what he worked towards for his whole life; it all felt natural. Like the only option. He had heavily isolated himself without realizing it, unintentionally. Why was that his instinct? Why had that been natural for him? There was no way that he could ever be like that again. It already seemed distant, strange, how he behaved on that world. And he was glad for that. 

 

The dead quiet of the night was disrupted by a distressed beeping coming from behind the bottom of a spiral staircase. Barry went to investigate.

 

***

 

Lup felt an urgency in trying to find Barry and she couldn’t pinpoint why. She hadn’t seen him all day and most of the day before, but it wasn’t like there was anything that needed to be done that required urgency. She just — needed to see him. She felt stressed, she felt down; she was exhausted. And her impulse at that moment was to find Barry.

  
  


They had been through a lot together. For seventeen years. She had learned so much from him, too; it was like getting a second education. Shit, a third or a fourth with the amount of time they had spent together, working and learning. She felt such an admiration and respect for him. And every moment with him was always so fun and — it was just the absolute best. It was either educational or it was entertaining or it was adventurous, risky, emotional and supportive; it was always something  _ more  _ than just spending time together. A lot more. Thinking about it, there hadn’t been a single dull moment with him. Or even a bad moment. Aside from the conversation they had about respect and the realization she had that stemmed from that, but that wasn’t any fault of his. And there was still somehow so much good in that conversation.

 

She thought back on her original decision to spend time with him, so many years before; she had felt like he needed help or like he was a project. He did change a bit, but mostly he just came out of his shell;  _ Barry  _ had been in there the whole time and was finally coming into his own. He didn’t really need help, just time, and somewhere along the line spending time with him turned from a desire to help him out to her just -- wanting to be around him. And she had also been influenced by him quite a bit. She never would have expected that. Her time felt valuable with him. He only ever added to her life and had never taken anything away. 

 

She couldn’t remember when it switched from her thinking that she was helping him to her being drawn to him, wanting to spend time with him more than anything else, to her congealing with him and them overlapping. Together, they had found ways of being the same, and found ways of being even more individualistic, too. It was like they inspired each other to be  _ more  _ of themselves, to increase their individuality while also sharing so much with each other, building a continuously increasing base of things to have in common. 

 

Her desire to get closer to him, to curl up next to him, to always be in close proximity to him… it had gone from a hum in the background to an overwhelming force pushing her towards him, intensifying until all she wanted was to be pressed close to him. And it was taking everything in her to resist the force trying to push her up against him. She wanted to give in, she wanted to —

 

What exactly did she want to do? What was she experiencing? Why did she want to be so close to him, so desperately? They were best friends and they already spent a significant amount of time together, yet somehow she needed to be closer… but she didn’t even know how they  _ could  _ be any closer. 

 

She just -- needed more time spent with him. She was becoming ravenous for the simple act of sharing space with him. She needed to stop backing off, maybe, just spend more time with him and figure out how to compose herself so that she didn’t make him uncomfortable. 

 

There was a nebulous thought that kept attempting to form in her mind that she couldn’t quite grasp. It was like… the way that she was describing her feelings to herself was the same way someone might describe how they felt about someone if —

 

But no. That was her best friend and her colleague. Yet, working with him and talking with him and being around him somehow didn’t satisfy her. What more was there to do? Why was she pulled to him? It was like —

 

But no. That was Barry Bluejeans. The man who was somehow both gruff and tender all at once. Barry, the most gentle person she had ever known but who had rough hands -- hands that were incredibly articulate and measured and careful and dexterous and fluid in the way they touched everything. Hands that she could watch in the lab forever. Barry, the man with messy, graying hair that suited him so well and looked dignified on him, even when it was late in a cycle and at its most chaotic. The man with the gravelly voice and the soft, sweet words written in a small, blue, worn down notebook. 

 

Just thinking about his hands and his hair and voice, about how he worked, how he  _ looked  _ when he worked -- she felt a weakness in her breath and a feeling that was something like anticipation swelling in her chest. Like something was going to happen. Like something  _ needed _ to happen. 

  
  


She just needed to find him. 

  
  


And when she did, the sight was adorable and she was smiling before even realizing it. He was working on the broken frame of one of the smaller robots, and even though it was sitting still and allowing him to work on it, it kept shocking him -- and judging by the spirit’s reaction, it wasn’t an accident. Magnus was outside, training the robots, imparting any wisdom he could on them before the inevitable onset of the Hunger, and it seemed like that particular one hadn’t been up for the task. And Barry was there in front of her, having not even been filled in on anything that was going on yet; he either just saw or was approached with a problem and had gone straight to fixing it. 

 

He had the robot set up on a chair in the dining area while he alternated between hunching over it and getting on his knees to reach at something lower on the frame, looking  like a concerned doctor fawning over a patient.  He wasn’t aware of her standing in the doorway where she stopped short when she found the person she had been so intent on finding. The spirit kept periodically shocking him, causing him to reflexively tear his hand away, then it would rhythmically light up the eyes of its robot shell and chirp in muted beeps of laughter. It was obviously enjoying playing with Barry. And Barry wasn’t getting mad or even frustrated. He was laughing, too. While he was trying to feign frustration, his heart wasn’t in it enough for the spirit to take him seriously; it was only encouraged. Shocking him again, he stumbled back, laughing, a hand partially covering his face in exasperation. 

 

“You little jerk! I’m trying to help!” the words came out between laughs and the spirit chirped at him some more. 

 

Barry really was trying hard to fix it, but had somehow bonded during a game that was at his expense, and he was just so -- genuinely happy. She had just watched the people she loved collectively go to a dark place and she had been feeling upset and discouraged. When she first set out back to the Starblaster, as soon as her and Taako’s work shrinking the crystal was done, she didn’t know exactly what she wanted or needed after everything that happened. Maybe to go be alone for a moment, to lie face first in a pillow, to gather herself. But instead, she went to look for Barry and, when she found him, she was instantly happy. She didn’t feel lost anymore. 

 

She wondered what he would have said, what he would have thought of or advocated for had he been there during the conversation about the crystal. She got lost for a moment, thinking about him, what she knew about him, what he probably would have felt or said about the whole thing. Her attention was diverted back to the scene in front of her by the sound of another zap followed by Barry’s laughter.

 

“The hell!? I mean -- jeez, you’ve got to get tired of doing this eventually!” 

 

Lup couldn’t help but laugh from where she stood in the doorway. Barry looked over at the sound and immediately turned red. 

 

The spirit started to behave itself as Lup approached and set a hand on Barry’s shoulder, something that had become such an instinctual movement. It was natural for her to touch people that way, but just then, she felt an unusual heat rise in her face and there was some sort of inexplicable feeling happening; like she wanted to really soak in the sensation of having her hand there. She was so  _ aware _ of it, and wanted more. To rub his shoulder, to add a hand to his other shoulder. But she had been working so hard and doing so well at treating him with more respect. 

 

But. 

 

She wanted to stand there behind him and put both hands on him, to slip them down and over his shoulders, to wrap her arms around his chest,  _ his cozy comfy chest _ , and to set her face next to his, to laugh at his scruff uncomfortably rubbing against her cheek, to feel his  _ warmth _ , to be warmed by him. 

 

She moved her hand away. It was too much. He looked up at her and smiled, shrugging his shoulders at the ridiculous situation he was caught in. And the spirit shocked him again. 

  
  


She laughed, again. And. She knew. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	18. Seafoam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Eighteen

 

“Hey, Barry! Check it out!” 

 

Barry was up on the deck of the Starblaster, looking out over the breathtaking endless view of glittering snow when Lup called up to him from the ground. He looked down and Lup turned around and away from the ship, formed a gigantic fireball in her cupped hands, turning them clockwise as the fire increased in size and intensity, the sound of crackling flames able to be heard from where he stood on deck. She released the ball and it sped into a snowbank that Barry had watched Taako use mage hand to form just a few minutes before. It exploded against the thickly packed snow, creating a firework like effect, sending a sparkling shower of ice and water in every direction, each bit lit up by the scattered residual flames. There was only a partial wall of snow left, blackened from the center in the shape of an exploding star. 

 

“Damn,” Barry muttered under his breath before yelling down to her, “that was cool!” She threw him finger guns and then stiffly skipped over to where Taako stood, bogged down with several layers of clothes under her robe.

 

Barry left the deck shortly after and headed into the lab. There hadn’t been much to do in the past couple days; him and Lup had already completed their usual round of tests that they ran whenever they landed in a new plane. There wasn’t a whole lot of vegetation there, and the conditions were not going to allow for any gardening. The only animals, and probably the most fascinating thing about the world so far, were ten story tall, blue-white beasts that moved in slow motion around the tall, icy spires that dotted the landscape. With drooping necks, they sent their beaked heads sweeping across the fields like metal detectors, boring holes into the ground to find whatever it was that they sustained themselves on. 

 

The animals were peaceful from what they could tell, but upon seeing them, Davenport had moved them to a plateau that was tall enough for them to not be accidentally crushed by the towering animals. And from that plateau, they had one of the best views in the world, prompting most of the crew to take turns on the deck to appreciate the sight of never ending crystalline fields, colossal lumbering creatures, and sharp, diamond-bright steeples erupting from the ground. 

 

Lup decided that she was too cold and, feeling done with the snow for the time being, headed inside. She thought about going to the lab, but was fairly certain that Barry had just left the deck to do the same thing, and she didn’t want to just follow immediately after him. She milled around in the kitchen for a minute, trying to find something to occupy herself with so that she could create a delay before entering the lab. She had the idea to make coffee, and got started on that.

 

***

 

“So. Pretty impressive, huh?” Lup stood in the doorway to the lab holding two cups of coffee. 

 

Barry swiveled around. “Yeah, that was honestly really cool.” Barry noticed that she still hadn’t taken off her tons of layers. “How are you able to -- basically do whatever you want with fire like that, but always be so cold?” 

 

“Tch, I can’t just like _ be on fire constantly, Barold _ ,” she walked over to her chair, set their coffee on the desk and sat down, rustling the whole time in her bundled-up state. “Otherwise, I’d be a hazard in the lab. And I kinda sorta like it in here.”

 

“Heh, yeah. Haven’t seen you in here much lately, though.”

 

“Oh. Yeah... I guess. Sorry.” Lup’s expression turned to one of guilt. 

 

“Oh, no Lup, I didn’t mean that to sound accusatory, or something? I don’t know… shit. I just miss you being in here.” Barry gulped realizing what he just said, still nervous from having said the wrong thing just before that, and then… what did he just say? He was desperately trying to keep a normal face on. 

 

Lup’s breath caught in her throat. “No, I get it, Barry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to look like I was upset about that or whatever. Umm -- fuck.” She pressed a finger against her lips while she thought for a moment. “I -- hmm. Let me think of how to say this.” She tapped the finger against her lips, brow furrowing.

 

Barry felt like his heart had stopped. He didn’t know what was coming but it was  _ something _ and his body was in full panic mode.  _ He had been too obvious or he did something wrong or-- _

 

“I’ve just been thinking that maybe I was being, umm. Too much? Like, just in your space constantly and stuff. I was trying to, ugh -- I guess giving you room to breathe or something like that? And wow, now that I’m saying all of this, I’m realizing how many assumptions I’ve been making.” 

 

“Oh my gods, Lup… not at all, I mean, I-I’m  _ so  _ sorry if I did something to make you feel like that? I-I don’t know, I’m not like you when it comes to social stuff; if I’m being awkward, that’s just me, it’s not your fault.” He winced at the sound of his words, hoping he didn’t come off self-pitying. 

 

But, she just smiled, small and soft. “That’s good. I’m glad. You’d tell me? If you needed space?”

 

Barry breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah. Of course.”

 

“Great. Now,” her smile turned mischievous and she rubbed her hands together, “tell me what Barry has been doing in here since I’ve been gone and what kind of action I can get in on.” 

 

“Oh, heh… so, maybe kind of weird. Or gross, I don’t know.”

 

“Love it so far.” Lup’s eyebrows arched as her smile curled.

 

Barry laughed. “Okay, I’ve got these samples preserved over here; been kinda analyzing them and uh, yknow, taking notes on any changes or uh, lack thereof. Uh, and so I’ve uh -- umm-”

 

“Are you gonna tell me what they are, Barold?” 

 

He took a deep breath in. “Okay, so. This is the kinda weird part, uh. So, after our last regeneration, the beginning of last year, you know, uh with the robots and, uh right after we went back to our recorded states and-”

 

“Mmhmm?”

 

“So, I uh, came into the lab pretty soon after we regenerated.”

 

“Like ya do.” 

 

Barry chuckled nervously. “And, I noticed one of your, um -- hairs, on- on your chair...”

 

“Okay? I mean, I’m not perfect, I shed like everyone else.” Lup forced a small laugh.

 

“Well, no uh, it was the fact that -- you hadn’t been in here yet?” 

 

“Oh.” Lup looked up blankly, pondering the meaning of what Barry had said. “Oh, shit, yeah okay, I see. If we’re regenerating and going back to our recorded state, how are there little bits of us around still?”

 

“Right… I kind of feel silly not noticing it before or thinking about it, really. It’s not like we keep our spaces perfectly clean -- there’s, yknow, hair and stuff around, but I guess I’m just used to our living space and its condition, right? And I’d never thought about checking for that sort of thing immediately after regeneration. But that time, it was right in front of me--”

 

Lup clasped her hands together and gasped. “So, I was your muse?” she said teasingly, with just the slightest hint of sincerity.  

 

Barry laughed, looking down and blushing. “Yeah, huh. I guess so.” 

 

Lup pushed away the lightness in her chest. “So, are you going to stop keeping me in suspense, Barold? What are you testing?”

 

“Well, uh, I-I. Hmm. So, I mostly have just a uh, few cheek swabs of my own, but -- ah shit... I didn’t really think about this before doing it and now this seems really weird, but I kept your hair and have that in a sample dish, too. That’s -- fucking weird isn’t it?” Barry rubbed the back of his neck, dying inside. He really hadn’t thought about it until then, hadn’t thought about how that would sound out loud. Didn’t think he was going to have to say it out loud. 

 

Lup shrugged. “I don’t think so. It’s just science.” 

 

“Hah,” Barry exhaled. “Okay, that’s great. Umm, so I guess all I’ve really found so far is that the samples don’t disappear, obviously, and they uh, degrade like normal. So, I don’t totally know what to do with that information yet but -- uh, yeah. Seems like small pieces of us just, uh. Act like normal, even as we regenerate.”

 

Lup had her hands pressed palm to palm, fingers tapping against each other as she put together her thoughts. “Ooooh, so... if we collected enough bits over time, grow some stuff in the lab, we could make a whole new guy who’s like, an amalgamation of all of us? I mean, it would probably be a terrifying and sinful monstrosity but what can you do, ya know?”

 

Barry was silent for a second, looking at Lup in disbelief before cracking up. “What the fuck, Lup, I mean--” and Lup got to see that shoulder-shaking, full body laugh from Barry that she loved. 

 

She laughed along and drank in the sight of him being happy, for maybe a little bit too long. She fell silent a moment before he stopped laughing and just looked at him. She shook her head a bit, chasing away what was probably the goofiest smile. And he stopped laughing and looked up at her and their eyes caught each other before she looked away. She spoke to break the tension that she was sure she had created on her own. 

 

“Well now that that’s all done with, I think it’s about time for the fourth sunset of the day; wanna go watch?” 

“Heh. Yeah.”

  
  


***

 

Because of the perfectly spaced apart rotation of the four distant suns of the planet, it was never fully dark. There were four dusks immediately following the four sunsets, but before dark could settle in, there was a sunrise following behind. The suns were far enough away, though, that they provided little in the way of warmth, and thus fostered the perpetual wintery state of the plane. The constant daylight wreaked havoc on Barry’s ability to sleep well. The windows of their private quarters were able to be closed fully, allowing no light in, but there was something about walking away from the sunny outdoors or from the common room, filled with natural light, to go to his room to sleep that didn’t feel right. He  _ knew _ it was light out, and that threw him off. 

 

He tried to force himself to be still, to let his mind run blank, to just let sleep happen. But his mind kept spinning and he fidgeted and was restless. His thoughts turned to the end of their prior year. He had been mostly filled in afterwards about what happened with the soul-filled crystal belonging to the robots, and how Lup had staunchly stood against its destruction, even in the face of everyone else advocating for the opposite. And while Davenport flew them out of that plane, she had spoken so passionately to everyone; she didn’t just back down or let it go, she made damn sure that everyone knew exactly what she felt. Barry admired that bravery and strength in her tremendously. She didn’t bend under pressure, she didn’t look away from problems, she didn’t keep her head down, she didn’t stay quiet. And she had been right -- once he heard about everything... she was  _ so  _ right. He understood the logic behind the crew considering destroying the crystal; what was the point of anything that they were doing if they knowingly allowed the Hunger to consume things that would potentially make it stronger? But it was still  _ wrong _ , and Lup knew that, and Lup would never go along with something wrong.

 

And when she spoke to the crew, she was so moving; her words didn’t just get across a message, they influenced emotion.  With her words, she took them to a place where they had to consider the true weight and meaning of the decision they had almost made, and she was clear about her feelings on what had almost happened. She wanted to glue together her family as people who would never do that sort of thing. And Lup, being just -- so full of love, threw in a joke to release the tension. To let everyone know that she still loved them; she didn’t want to leave them with the lingering sensation of her being disappointed in them. She just wanted to be clear, to be heard; to have the people that she loved never be the kind of people who could do something like  _ that.  _

 

He thought about how capable and powerful she was; eloquent in her speech, a leader, inspirational. And just -- right. She was right. And she was fiercely against doing wrong. Compassionate, virtuous. Gods, he admired her. Who  _ wouldn’t _ want to follow her to the ends of the earth? She could lead an army. 

 

Without a hint of exaggeration -- she was the most amazing person he had ever known. 

  
  


***

 

“Merle, have you looked at yourself? Do you even  _ own  _ a mirror?”

 

Merle looked up at Taako from where he was lying on the common room floor. “What’s wrong?”

 

“Your braids, Merle. Loose, uneven; and your flyaways are making me actually physically ill. Come here.” 

 

“Okay, okay! Jeez.” Merle rolled himself over, got up and stepped over to where Taako sat on the couch. Taako threw down a pillow on the floor in front of him and gestured for Merle to sit down, and once he did, Taako immediately dug in and effortlessly pulled apart the messy braids in a couple deft strokes. 

 

“I do dig the flowers though; that is a look that you can actually pull off, old man.” 

 

Merle huffed and crossed his arms, “Hey, who’s an old man? I’m young at heart!” 

 

“If by young at heart you mean that you act like a small child and eat with your hands, then sure my guy, you got a point there.” 

 

For the entire process, Merle complained about Taako pulling and the braids being too tight. Halfway through, Magnus came in from the kitchen, going to town on a bag of ‘chips’ that Taako had made for him with dehydrated vegetables and copious amounts of spices. He sat on the opposite side of the couch and proceeded to just watch, captivated, as Taako worked on Merle. 

 

“Wow, your head is an entirely different shape when your hair isn’t all puffed out,” Magnus’s words came out muffled through a mouthful of chips. 

 

“Okay,” Merle waved his hands in front of him and shook his head, “there’s no need for all this, what did--”

 

Taako grunted as Merle moved his head and pulled the handful of hair that he held back taught, eliciting a yelp from Merle. “Don’t move, I’m trying to help! I’ve already made the mistake of touching this greasy mess of yours, at least let me finish!” 

 

Lucretia was across the room sitting at the dining table, jotting down the casual conversation and interactions happening around her as she normally did, while periodically looking out the window. 

 

“Oh.” Her quiet voice somehow grabbed the attention of everyone in the room. “That’s… strange.” 

 

Taako and Magnus got up and moved over to the window while Merle continued to sit on the floor, trying to make a show of how offended he was.

 

Outside, down in the snowy plains that their plateau overlooked, there was an oddly perfectly spaced and timed line of the tall-legged animals lumbering towards a dangerous looking mountain range. There were -- hundreds of them. Multitudes more than they had ever seen together at the same time. And they were all perfectly in sync with each other; each leg arching forward and each foot hitting the ground at the same time. 

 

They didn’t know how things on that planet worked; it could have just been the natural migration for the animals of that world. But, something about it was off. More off than being alien to them. It may have been a stretch, but they took it as being a lead on the light. 

 

***

They assembled, were briefed, readied themselves, and within less than an hour Davenport was navigating them towards the mountain range. They were concerned that if the animals got there first that the light might  _ do _ something to them. Or, that they might react in some way to the crew trying to take the light. They knew they had to get there fast and hope that other animals, or any other beings that might have occupied the planet, weren’t already there. 

 

Davenport circled over the mountain range and they didn’t have to search long before they saw it -- a fantastic beam of light emanating from a small dip between multiple, stony, snow capped crests. It set the small area of white landscape around it on fire; every water droplet, every crystallized bit of ice reflected the radiant light in every direction within the hollow where it resided, creating a pool of blinding luminescence.

 

The mountain peaks surrounding its location were high and close together enough that Davenport didn’t think it would be safe to lower the Starblaster for them to rope down; but there was an area flat enough nearby to land, and it connected to a pass that looked like a manageable hike. Davenport expertly took them down to the clearing. The team that went out to retrieve the light was made up of Barry, Magnus, and Merle. 

 

...

 

Outfitted in heavy winter gear, the three of them trudged along through the thick snow. They took their time to make sure Merle could keep up with them, and something made Barry notice how patient Magnus was. He could almost hear the frustration that Taako would have had if he were there, but Magnus was unbothered and seemed happy to wait periodically for everyone to catch up to his long, powerful stride that cut through the dense snow. 

 

Magnus was a little bit ahead of them, Barry directly behind, and they stopped once again so that Merle could catch up. The wind was starting to pick up and it was getting steadily more difficult to see around them. They knew it was important to stay as close as possible; the conditions were perfect for getting separated and lost in. Barry felt Merle pat him on the leg once he had caught up. 

 

“You know, we should hang out more, Barry.” 

 

“Heh, yeah that would be nice, Merle.”

 

Magnus threw an arm around Barry. “I’m so glad that you didn’t stay antisocial forever, it’s been nice having you around.” 

 

Barry smiled at the ground. “Thanks, Magnus. I’m glad, too.”

 

Merle nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, good on Lup for dragging you out of the ‘nerd cave’.”

 

Magnus shot Merle a disapproving look.

 

“I mean uh, the cave, where uh -- cool guys go.” 

 

“It’s okay.” Barry chuckled. “I’m glad I’m not confining myself to the ‘nerd cave’, too.” 

 

Magnus smiled and pat Barry’s back before dropping his hand. “All right! Onward!”  

 

…

 

As the path narrowed, the wind howled through the pass and they couldn’t talk to each other anymore. The wind rushed past their ears, filling their hearing with itself and nothing else, sucking out their breath. They could see the path open up into a wider expanse not far in front of them, but beyond that all they could see were whorled billows of white. 

 

Silently marching forward, more and more snow clinging to them, they collectively hoped that the wind would calm once they reached the open area where they had seen the light from above. But, when they approached the end of the narrow mountain pass, violent gusts of wind whipped around them as the path opened up into a bowl-like clearing. 

 

Everything went white, for all of them. Stinging and cold against their faces, sharp, wet, somehow almost cutting but then melting at the same time. 

 

White bitter wind entirely obscured Barry’s vision and he stumbled, faltered, tried to stay the course, and then fought just to even stay still. He tried to reach out to Magnus and Merle, tried to grab on to anything. But he was lost, separated. He couldn’t feel anything, see anything, hear anything. He was pushed and knocked around mercilessly with no idea if he had just stumbled a couple of steps, or was knocked off of a ledge. All spatial awareness, even awareness of his own body was drowned out. He was distracted by the noise, the sensation of the pure essence of cold, of the sharpness of a million tiny pieces of ice propelled by an angry storm colliding with his face. 

 

He fell to his knees. And could barely even feel that. He wasn’t even sure if his body had actually moved. 

 

...

 

As the wind died down, Merle could see something dark among the stark white and he ran, slipping into the snow in the deceptively deeper spots, working his legs as hard as he could but barely breaking the pace of a leisurely walk. 

 

He made it to Magnus’s side and seeing him unconscious, knelt down and laid his hands on him and muttered a prayer to Pan. The slightest hint of flesh tone rose to Magnus’s face through the icy blue white that was overtaking him. The gathered bits of snow melted against his skin and looked like droplets of sweat. Magnus stiffly sat up, and Merle put his short arm around his back to help support him.

 

After taking a few moments to gather his breath and become aware of his surroundings again, Magnus looked Merle over. 

 

“How did you end up fine? You look barely scratched up.”

 

Merle shrugged. “Benefits of being small and dense, I guess. I just kinda got thrown around a little, but I’m used to that.” 

 

“...why are you used to getting thrown around?”

 

“Oh, you know. Dwarf games. Dwarf summer camp and stuff.” 

 

Magnus shook his head. “Uh -- huh. Sure. Well, hopefully Barry is right around here somewhere, too.” 

 

They both got to their feet and started to slowly search together, not moving more than a couple inches apart. 

 

…

  
  


Barry couldn’t see them. Or hear them. He couldn’t see anything except for shining, swirling white. He couldn’t hear anything except for the unrelenting wind. He frantically felt around with his hands, not even knowing what he was trying to feel for, just -- anything. Anything to indicate where he was, what was next to him, where he could even move to, a direction to start heading in. 

 

But then --

 

He heard cracking, crunching. A dull echo. He felt the cold before he could even process the sickening sound of the cliff edge breaking under the weight of snow; dense snow that muted the sound as the stone beneath it grated against itself and fell, sounding like bone breaking out of a body. 

 

The coldness first, then the sharpness of the shower of snow forcefully flung at him, setting the small area of his exposed face on fire, then the impact, then the sensation of his breath being torn away and replaced with the feeling of his ribs cracking. 

 

And then he felt nothing. 

  
  


***

 

Back on board as they waited for the expedition team to return, Taako and Lup were wrapped up in a blanket nest on their bed, made up of sheets, stray garments, a couple magazines, and an indeterminate amount of scrunchies. They knew that they needed to talk still about the end of the year prior. 

 

Lup was effortlessly twirling a sparkly headband around her forefinger, staring at the ceiling.

 

“You know that _we_ were the ones who gave it the name ‘Hunger’, right? And that inferring any meaning from its title about what it does to the planets it consumes doesn’t make any sense because _we were the ones who gave it that name?_ Because, we just as easily could have called it ‘the Pocket, Where Things are Cool’ if we had been so inclined.” 

 

“I know, I know LuLu. I thought of that pretty much right after I said it, but there was a lot going on and I felt like I was right.” Taako fidgeted, knowing that the conversation needed to happen, but still feeling uncomfortable. He started rustling around, sticking his hands in the blankets and looking for a magazine to pull out. 

 

Lup softly punched his arm. 

 

“Well, you  _ weren’t  _ right.” 

 

“I know.” He pulled his hand out and, laying on his back, stared at the ceiling. 

 

Lup wriggled further into the blankets and partially hid her face.

“I’m... really proud of you, Taako. For what ended up happening. For coming up with that solution and bringing the crystal with us. It feels right, I -- I think that was the best that we could’ve done.” Keeping her face half-hidden, she reached a hand out from the sheet she was tangled in and grabbed onto his.

 

“Yeah. It does feel right. But, LuLu, I still have the need to destroy something. It’s like I was about to sneeze and you interrupted it and now I still really need to sneeze except what I really want is to blast something and watch it shatter.” 

 

Lup laugh and squeezed her brother’s hand. “Well, I thiiink I saw some giant ice crystals somewhere out there…” 

 

“Yeah, but Cap'n Port is all weirded out about those animals and attracting their attention or whatever, even though they’re obviously chill.” 

 

“Well,” Lup tapped her forefinger against her lips as she thought. “When everyone’s back, I’m sure we could organize something along the lines of getting Merle and him into some card games while we set up a sphere of silence around stuff to destroy so you can just go nuts.”

 

“All that for me?” Taako smiled at his sister. “Aww. You  _ love me _ .”

 

“Gross, I do not, how could I love someone so  _ ugly!? _ ” Lup pushed Taako’s antagonistically smiling face away, into the blankets. He flailed and, finding a pillow with his hand, waved it around until, without being able to see, he whacked her in the face. She faltered only for a second and then easily grabbed the pillow from him, and as he started to get up and got his face out of the blanket mound where she had shoved him, he was immediately greeted with the same pillow sweeping towards, and then connecting with his face. 

 

...

 

After their laughter quieted, Taako sobered and stumbled over his words, trying to get out a thought. 

 

“I’m... woof… I’m sorry. You know you’re everything to me and I would never want to go against you. I just really thought that we only had one choice, but… I’m glad you stopped us and made us think it over. I probably wouldn’t have come up with that idea if you hadn’t made us wait a minute. That’s -- Lup, that’s why you’re--”

 

“The better twin?” Lup smiled impishly, her hair a mess from their pillow fight.  

 

“I -no! You--”

 

“The  _ cooler  _ twin?”

 

“Lu- c’mon LuLu, I’m trying to be serious here, you know that’s hard for me.” 

 

“Okay, okay.” Lup softened and straightened up a bit. “That’s why I’m what?” 

 

Taako sighed. “That’s why you’re just -- not a better twin, but a better person than me. A better person than most, and … I’m proud of you, too. I’m proud of you like, basically all of the time.” 

 

Lup’s eyebrows moved together in the way that they did when she was on the verge of a strong emotion. She melted back into the blankets, and Taako relaxed into the Taako-shaped groove he had made. Cuddling up next to each other in their blanket nest, Lup sighed and squeezed Taako, tearing up just the tiniest bit as she thought about how much she loved her brother. The one constant in her life; the  _ best  _ part of her life. The person she needed the most, the only person her heart was completely open to. The person that made up the core of her heart. Even if they disagreed, even if he made the wrong decision sometimes, even when they were at opposite ends; he was her everything. 

 

They were bound, hearts knit together. Sometimes, a torturous thought would creep up on her -- what if she had been an only child? What if she never had her brother? Even thinking about it was enough to make her cry. She would have a hole instead of a heart. Not having Taako would be like not being able to smile. 

 

He could tell that she had just thought about something sad, and could sense the tears forming in her eyes.

 

Taako tightened his arms around Lup. “You’re such a sap.”

 

And she laughed while the tears that were the embodiment of pure love for her brother fell to the pillow under her head. 

  
  


***

  
  


When Barry woke up, his first thought was that something different was happening with how their deaths worked. And he was terrified. Because what if it meant that he never saw Lup again? 

 

But then he felt the cold and remembered the sound, the snow, the pressure. He was buried. And he could barely move. And he didn’t even know which way was up. He couldn’t reach his pockets or into his pack, if it was even still with him. 

 

Was he just going to have to wait to die? Wait for things to go dark so he could wake back up on the Starblaster?

 

But -- Lup. 

 

…

  
  


How did he get to where he was?

  
  


He had spent almost his entire life with a single goal. Had focused all of his time and energy into one thing. And he had  _ thought  _ and he had been  _ told  _ that that one thing was keeping him from others, that it would seclude him from love, that it would leave him lonely  _ and it did...  _ sometimes he felt it, he knew it. He saw what others had in their lives and wished he had those things. Ultimately though, he thought those things didn’t matter. Or at least he told himself that. Be _ca_ use he was already too far down the path he had chos _e_ to change. 

 

He had al _w_ ays been dri _v_ en, had one set course, never even felt like there was anything else that he  _ could  _ do. No matter what doubts he had, what anyone said, what he  _ knew _ \-- he was still so focused on his education, his career.        And even with that focus and that drive and loving what he did, he never really knew  _ why _ . Why did he want that?  Why was he only interested in going down  _ one  _ path? There was some kind of outside force, almost. He felt like he never had a choice; he was defined by his drive, by his work ethic, by his emotional separation ,.    ,

 

He had never known. Why.

 

But he knew then. 

He realized, fi _n_ ally. There in the  cold, in the dark, unable to move,  barely able to f _ e _ el, his mind un[raveling. Shutting .down., Maybe it was silly, overly ro _ ma _ ntic,  delusional  even but -- he wouldn’t have met Lup.  _ He would have never met Lup _ . He wouldn’t have had  _ years _ with Lup. he sacrificed his entire life chasing a gOal, and he and he had no idea where it was taking him or why why that even  _ was  _ the goal that was worth putting his entire life into. He had his days of doubt - - - even though he enjoyed his work and he had accomplished a lot,       he knew that  _ life _ _ was going by. _ That was the only life he would eVer have; as far as he knew at that time. AInd he had had his doubts about what he was doing with it. with

 

But, he realized then that     there wasn’t a single doubt anymore

 

It had all brought him to Lup. 

to

he fought to keep thinking, to stay awake, keep his his mind movinng

maybe it wasn’t silly. It  _ couldn’t  _ be a coincidence. His entire life -- he had been constructing the means   through which he would meet Lup without knowing it.  _ That  _ was what his life’s work had been for. That was what had made it all worth it. ,

 

He had been building a ladder to the sun, rung by rung 

 

his lonely life was a map to her

 

He f _ou_ ght to ke eep his eyes openHe wasn’t    going to die. He wasn’t going to miss out on a moment with her. ,.Immortality, infinity, regeneration be damned. Ttime with her was still precious, even in minutes, even in seconds. Besides, his life was barely even his own; his life had  _ always  _ been about her. It had  _ always  _ been about time with her with her. with

 

Decades of work - -  _ that  _ was what he thought was turning him into the person he wanted to bbbecome. But it was all overridden by Lup. His real life was only 

 

just starting. Just by watching her, being inspired by her -- it brought out things in him that he was learning to love. 

He had never ne _ce_ ssarily been self-loathing,       . .

but feeling like there were things about himself that he liked or loved? That was new 

 

That was new. Something that had simply gone -- unconsidered. It had just never occurred to him    until he saw Lup loving herself. 

 

Lup po int ing out things th _ a _ t should be loved in everyone. In everyoneWhen she was abrasive, it was obviously a joke, and it was aff _ e _ ctionate, even then. When she was sincere… it was ev _ e _ r’yth _ in _ g. She r _ e _ ached the core, ef _ f _ ortle _ s _ sly wrap _ p _ ed her f _ ing _ ers th _ ro _ ugh and around the  _ pu _ lpy  he _ a _ rt of the re _ ce _ iver of h _ e _ r w _ o _ rds  _ He wasn’t going to die. _

 

As his m _ in _ d slip pe d m _ or _ e and more, the only thi _ n _ g w _ a _ rm in him were his thoughts, thoughts wh _ e _ n he im _ a _ gined a life wi _ t _ h her… 

 

W _ ha _ t i **f**

 

He saw h _ e _ r every d _ a _ y still, and t _ he _ y had a di _ ffere _ nt home. She paints eve _ ry _ thing sea`foam g-gr _ ee _ n. He co _ m _ es home to her hands covered in clay. They live underwater, she’s drawn trees on herself in permanent marker, her hair always floats 

.,

 

He c _ ou _ ld hear her digging through the ice… no, he could see her. See her f

 

from outside, digging with a sp _o_ on.  _ coming to save him _ But the hole kept refilling itself, and the ice turned to metal, and s h e couldn’t dig anymore. A _ n _ d she walked away. A n d her hair was floating beh ind her, was suspended at each curl by bu bb les, and her foot|steps left a quickly fading im pr ession of  col o r, like a prism of light through a crystal, double refracting from the center of the impression in the snow, in thewsnow sending r a ys of endless color forever into the distance before they faded and were replaced with the  next, shining footprint shattereddd with [prisms s .              . ,

 

What if --,.

 

It had  _ all  _ been a hallucination. 

ahallucinationnn nnn Maybe he had been dying for  hours . Dreaming about a life where he was deathless, and would see Lup over and  over  again. How spectacular and surreal did that sound? How spectacular. an.d surreal did  _ L u p _ sound?. 

 

His heart raced and he could see in his

mind, thought he could see his fingertips changing  colorsl djkb. 

 

He focused -- he tra _ns_ ferred that deter _m_ ina _t_ ion  _ not to  _

Die 

_ Not to die and to see Lup _

 

tr.ansferred it into the fists that were  bound  by snow to his sides, his mind couldn’t even think of a spell, of a name of one, of even a  _ word    _  he forced that 

energy

into his hands. He st _il_ l couldn’t feel. But then, he heard popping, crackling, and u _ se _ d that to melt awayyy

 

_ He wasn’t going to die. _

 

, pushing forward, not feeling his feet, barely able to feel any of his body, unaware of himselff. But as his h

hands were warmed, ttthey hurt. The o

nly feeling he got back was the overwhelmingslrg sensation of pain. 

and as he pushed them through the snow, 

they hurt more. an unbearable pain, 

 

it was sharp in his fingers and felt like it went into the bones of his fingers. Intothebones

xlmsfj but,

 

_ He wasn’t going to die. _

 

No pain could keep him from her. fromherrrrrherrrherherher

 

He needed her. He needed to see her. One smile. All the pain would be wworth it. 

 

` .

If he heard her voice, it would melt his heart into amber. 

It would siphon the cold from his body.

It would liquefy the ice forming in his blood.

It would electrify his nerves and bring feeling back to his fingers, to his eyelids.  

  
  


intohiseyelidstheinsideofhiseyelidsallhecouldsee

 

He got his hands out in front of himself.   He felt a wave of energy collect in them and the pain was excruciating; like there were vices tightening on each of his fingers, until they were crushed, beyond crushed. He grit his teeth enough to feel his jaw bone pop, his entire body was trembling from cold and pain, from having

 

every drop of energy ripped from him, focused into his hands, and then

 

A release of that energy. Muted by a six foot wall of packed snow, but enough to tear through the blaring white prison and, 

to light. 

 

And not just the light of day, 

Notj ust to the light of day

 

but  _ the  _

 

_ light.  _

 

***

  
  
  


As Barry stumbled in through the door of the Starblaster, Lup and Merle had just finished getting outfitted for their second search attempt for him. As he blinked away the frost that still clung to his eyelashes, he saw her, weighed down with gear and wrapped in several layers. He saw her eyes lighting up. He saw her running at him. She stopped short in front of him, placed her hands on his shoulders and looked at him, into his eyes, with deep relief. She hesitated, and then she allowed her arms to slide over his shoulders and encircle his neck, and he happily laughed, or at least he smiled and his muscles moved as if he were laughing, but his voice was barely audible and his throat hurt. 

 

And then he was surrounded by his friends, his  _ family _ . They looked him over, making sure he was okay. Lucretia ran to make tea, Davenport was off to grab blankets, and Merle was about to work on healing him when Taako grabbed his hands. 

 

“Holy shit, Barry!” 

 

Barry looked down at his hands and saw that they were blackened -- not from frostbite, but from the flood of magical energy he had channelled through them. Lup was blown away; she was looking at his hands, her mouth open, then looked back up at him, smiling wide.

 

Taako let go of Barry and stepped aside so Merle could work and as he stepped away, he looked Barry up and down. “Shit yeah, I’m a pretty fucking great teacher.”

 

Lup nudged him. He rolled his eyes, but then said with sincerity, “You did real good, Bear.” 

 

“Barry,” Lup sighed a breath of happiness and relief, “I’m glad you’re safe.”

 

Lucretia walked in with a tray of cups and a teapot just as Davenport returned with a pile of folded blankets taller than himself, having to look at where he was going by peeking out from the side. 

 

After warming up, Barry was able to fully speak again and filled in the crew on what he could remember of what happened. Merle applied a second round of healing after Magnus pat Barry on the back, causing him to wince and notice that his ribs were still in fairly bad shape. 

 

“Oh, shit I almost forgot.” Barry slipped off his pack and drew out a balled up blanket; a glowing light peeking out from the folds of fabric. 

 

“Are you serious!?” Taako sat upright, looking Barry up and down again. “I am losing my shit Barold, when did you turn into a badass? Obviously, it was when I wasn’t looking because I did not see any of this coming.” 

 

Barry just laughed, trying to stay engaged, but his eyes were faltering. They all noticed and calmed things down for him. They stopped the flow of questions and attention, made sure he was thoroughly bundled in blankets, and quietly talked among themselves, keeping an eye on him as he drifted off. 

 

***

 

Barry had been with the light, running tests all day before he fell asleep in the lab, his forehead against his arms folded over the desk. 

 

And it disturbed his fitful sleep.

 

It wanted him to leave with it. It wanted him to pick it up, walk out into the cold, and go away with it. Be alone with it. 

 

Somewhere they could be uninterrupted, undisturbed, don’t tell anyone, don’t tell anyone where you’re going, they’ll just interrupt, they’ll try to disrupt this time together, we have things to do, you and I have things we need to do. 

 

You’re obviously the best one to have it, with your knowledge, your scientific curiosity.  _ You, Barry. I am for you. You’ve been resisting, but think of what we can do together. Unlock me.  _

  
  


_ Why do you think you found me. I saved you.  _

  
  


Barry woke up. He grabbed a box from under the desk and covered the light with it. Then left the lab for his bedroom and went to sleep. 


	19. Velvet Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Nineteen

****  
  


Merle walked into the common room, shirtless. The rest of the crew just watched as he entered, changing the atmosphere of the room entirely, making it fraught with a mixture of feelings.

 

They had seen  _ some  _ of each other in various states of undress before, but only briefly and usually for a good reason. Like when Magnus disturbed a hibernating beehive and was swarmed by them so intensely that some had made it under his shirt. The crew was treated to the sight of him running by, screaming and pulling off various articles of clothing, leaving a trail behind him that started with his IPRE jacket and ended with his thermal undershirt. 

 

Merle stopped short before reaching the couch, noticing that everyone was quietly staring at him. 

 

“Why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer.” 

 

Taako threw his hands up over his head in a dramatic display of disbelief. “Oh, so we’re just walking around without shirts now, huh? This is what’s happening? This is who we are now?”

Davenport cocked his head and slowly shrugged, palms upturned. “… I mean. It  _ is _ pretty hot. No sense in being uncomfortable or having anyone overheating.” 

 

Magnus was already grabbing the bottom of his shirt, about to pull it over his head. “Way ahead of ya, Cap’n!”

 

Taako practically screamed as he extended his arms outwards, gesticulating wildly. “Have we lost all sense of decency? Is this how it’s going to be?!”

 

Merle shook his head. “It’s been damn near twenty years! I think we’re beyond caring about this kind of thing.” 

 

“Are we, Merle? We weren’t, like five minutes before you walked into the room. I didn’t need to know how hairy your chest is.” 

 

“And why not? What’s so wrong with that? S’just a body.” 

 

Taako waved dismissively in Merle’s direction. “This is too much for me, I’ll be in my room with a fan like a  _ reasonable person. _ ”

 

Merle shrugged, then turned to Lup once Taako left. “What’s wrong with him?”

 

Lup scrunched up her eyebrows, perplexed. “I think what’s wrong is that you came in here without a shirt on. That was exactly what he said was wrong, Merle. I don’t know why you need me to tell you when Taako literally just screamed it at you.” 

 

“Well! I thought there must have been something else going on for him to overreact so damn much!” 

 

“Nah. I think he just  _ really  _ didn’t like seeing you shirtless.” Lup trailed off and tried to focus her gaze on anything but Barry, who was sitting on the opposite couch and facing her, his nose buried in a book, barely aware of what was happening around him. She was trying  _ very  _ hard not to imagine him shirtless, but as soon as the thought popped into her head she was not having an easy time getting it to go away. She felt certain that it was written all over her face. 

 

Merle looked over at Magnus, who was also shirtless by that point, with approval. 

“What say you we go out on the deck?” 

 

“Let’s do it! This bod is ready for some sun!” Magnus was on his feet and following Merle before his sentence was finished.

 

As the two of them walked towards the door to the deck, Davenport quietly got up and went after them.

 

Lucretia looked deep in thought considering her options. “I think I’ll go get my umbrella and join them outside, as well.” 

 

“Cool cool, Luc. Have fun with getting an eyeful of -- all that,” Lup lightly laughed, waving her hand in the general direction of the deck. 

 

Lucretia paused, not knowing what to say back and unable to parse exactly what Lup meant by what she said, if she meant anything at all. She ended up hurriedly blurting out “I’m -- just going to read outside for a bit I’ll see you all later,” before leaving the room.

 

Then, it was only Lup and Barry in the room. He looked up from his book at her and smiled. 

“Taako gonna be okay?”

 

“Hah, yeah. I think he’s mostly feigning indignance. He’ll probably ‘reluctantly’ join in eventually, acting like he’s still mad about it but with a  _ might as well _ sorta attitude. He’s got his whole image to maintain, yknow.”

 

There was silence for a moment as Lup considered asking if he was going to join them, but couldn’t dare imply anything about Barry getting into any state of undress -- she had seen more of him than anyone else had, and that was with a shirt and boxers on. Meaning that she had simply seen part of his legs. For  _ maybe _ just over a minute. Years before then.

 

Barry looked back down at his book, not to read but to give himself a moment to think. She was going to die if he went out there -- would she have the guts to follow him? And end up definitely seeing him if he decided to join the party? Would that be weird? She also knew that she would  _ have _ to make a point of not abiding by double-standards as far as shirt-taking-off went. That was something she felt an obligation to do in situations like that, no matter who was around. 

 

Barry looked up again and shifted in his seat, seeming a little uncomfortable. “Well, I think I’m going to head into the lab. There’s some stuff I want to get a jump on and uh, it - it stays way cooler in there anyways.”

 

Lup lept at the opportunity. “Oh, yeah, that makes sense. You need help?” 

 

Barry smiled from the corner of his mouth and timidly looked towards the floor. He was secretly hoping that she would want to join him, but he was worried about looking antisocial again by not going out on the deck with everyone else and possibly disappointing her. 

 

“Yeah. I can always use your help.” 

 

“Great!” Lup sprang up from the couch and was standing in front of Barry before he even had the chance to get up. And -- it was part natural impulse, and it was part giving in to something she really wanted to do, though she denied that bit to herself. She ruffled his hair, just a  _ little  _ bit. Barry blushed, but Lup was blushing too, so she skipped away and into the lab before he had the chance to get up and see her face.

 

***

 

A couple hours before sunrise, Lup was standing out on the deck. With her arms folded across the railing, head tilted skyward, she enjoyed the blackened, deep red sky that was overflowing with a heart stopping amount of stars. She normally used her stargazing sessions to allow her mind to go blank for a bit; to fall into a state of pure relaxation, focusing only on the feeling of her body and the miracle of the stars in the sky. But that night she was distracted. She had been distracted a lot, lately. 

An entire  _ year.  _ And a couple months of their current year. That was kind of a long time to be -- fixated on someone like that. Though, they  _ were  _ in constant small quarters with each other, so it kind of made sense that there was simply nowhere for those feelings to go. There was no breathing room; the energy of her infatuation could only perpetually feed into itself. 

She knew she needed to tamp it down. But, what she really wanted was to fall deep into the warm pool of her feelings. She had found herself frequently drifting off, mind wandering, failing to pay attention to whatever was in front of her because it was just -- fun, she guessed, to run through imaginary scenarios in her head. She couldn’t help herself. 

Her fondness for him was impossible to act upon, and it would be best if it went away. But, the brand new emotional sensations she was experiencing just felt so  _ good.  _ The fluttering in her chest, the rapid temperature changes in her body, the constant bursts of dopamine simply from seeing him or even hearing someone else  _ mention _ him. She got a secret satisfaction out of overhearing the others say anything about him; about needing him to do something or wondering where he was or being thankful for something he had done. She smiled inside when she saw his things lying around. She wanted to pick up his books and read them, to pull his coat over her shoulders and feel cute and small in the oversized garment. She wanted to pore over the notebooks he left lying around and admire his attention to detail, his impeccably neat handwriting, his unique observations and his creative solutions. 

Whenever he walked into a room, the tingling emotions that dashed through her and the physically palpable spark of eagerness she felt when considering approaching him or talking to him -- it was addicting. She wanted it over and over, every day. She took careful mental notes on his voice, on his eyes, on the way his shoulders tensed when he was trying to do precision work in the lab. And she would go over those mental notes in bed until she drifted off. She had been sleeping more often instead of trancing, just for the sensation of drifting away to thoughts of him, a smile on her face. Waking up in the morning was  exciting. She was frequently disappointed when everyone headed to bed; from the second that he left to sleep, she couldn’t wait for him to wake up. Every moment that he wasn’t around, she was buzzing with anticipation for him to be near her again. 

__

She refused to think about how impossible it was. Or how irresponsible it would be to say anything. She just wanted to indulge in her feelings and her secret thoughts, to soak in her small fantasies. Just for a little bit. It would get old eventually, right? 

...

 

After sunrise, she left the deck and headed to the kitchen. She heard Barry’s door opening; she had become familiar with the tell-tale creak of his door and had started to have a pavlovian response to the noise where, as soon as she heard it, she got a feeling of elation that rose through her so fast it almost gave her a head rush every time. 

 

Lup listened to his footsteps as he walked through the corridor past the kitchen and towards the lab. She almost started hopping around in her enthusiasm. The waiting was done, she was going to see him any minute. She didn’t want to be in his face immediately  _ every  _ morning; that wasn’t really fair to him. He needed alone time and space just like anyone else. But she definitely wasn’t going to leave him alone that morning. She was aching to see him right then; to see him still all blurry-eyed, hear his voice huskier and slower than usual, to watch all of his little nervous habits as he gathered himself and his thoughts. He would rhythmically tap his fingers on the desk in front of him and periodically massage his temples or move his fingers under his glasses to rub at his eyes. And as he worked his way through fully waking up, she would watch with rapt attention and commit his little movements to memory.

...

Lup walked into the lab with coffee for the both of them and set the mugs on the desk. Barry gave her his usual grateful smile and quiet thanks as she sat down in her chair next to him and excitedly asked about what they would be working on that day. To Barry, it sounded like she was eager to spend the majority of the day on work that just so happened to be with him -- and he went through his usual motions of slowly waking up, feeling happy and lucky that his day was starting off next to her. 

 

***

 

Barry agonized looking over his results as he took notes. It had began as a fun experiment based on an exciting observation, but it was starting to get into his head. He was just -- watching little bits of them age and die. He had shared what he was testing with the rest of the crew and gathered samples from everyone. And then he observed and took notes as the pieces of his family deteriorated and didn’t recover or change in any way after regeneration. He thought back to their second year when he had taken samples from them to try and figure out the nature of their first regeneration. His head was in a totally different place back then, and he hadn’t been looking for the same type of things. It would have been interesting to still have those samples handy, but unfortunately his lab equipment was finite; the samples had long been discarded and the containers had been run through the autoclave dozens of times since then. 

 

Throughout their year there so far, he had been experiencing frequent adrenaline spikes that popped up at random, apropos of nothing. He could be sitting perfectly still, focused on a task in front of him, and then he’d feel a rush of panicked energy sweep through his body, as if he was supposed to move or he was about to do something when he wasn’t, at all. They were usually accompanied by a vivid memory or a distinct feeling from when he had been buried. Memories like the sensation of being unable to move, unable to feel his body, his mind moving like fluid across emotional landscapes that he could barely remember once he had recovered. And sometimes, he would actually physically wince at the abrupt recollection of the sound of the cliff edge breaking off, and of the feeling of impact from the violent onslaught of snow and rock. There was a deeply unsettling lucidity to the memories, like his body was preparing itself to feel those things again in that moment. 

 

He pushed through it and told himself that it would go away soon. He had survived it, after all. In his near-death state, he had somehow pulled together an incredible force of power that saved his life. Knowing that that was something he could do brought him immense comfort; it said to him that if at some point they were caught in a desperate situation, maybe he could summon that sort of power to save Lup.

But then, doubt kicked in. Had he actually wielded that magic or was it just the proximity to the light? He was dying, hallucinating; how could he have had the power to do that? To do anything? He could barely even move or feel. At the time, he had convinced himself that it was caused by his determination to see Lup, but that was such a romantic and fantastical belief. Could you really summon raw power from out of nowhere, just because your feelings for someone were strong? Could  _ he _ do something like that? 

His dreams were filled with whispers from the light for the entire time they had had it in the year prior. As had been promised, the rest of the crew communicated any strange thoughts inspired by the light while it was on board. But none of them had gone through what he had, and the light seemed to be speaking to him specifically about his survival. Lup worked to assuage his fears, and they had come to the conclusion together that it was most likely partially the light and partially his own subconscious. Of  _ course  _ he would doubt himself and his abilities; that was kind of his thing. Something that he had been working on, sure, but it took time to unlearn negative thought patterns and retrain them as positive ones. Still, he couldn’t help but be disturbed by the clarity of the voice and how it seemed like it had been trying to use the miracle of his survival as leverage to get him alone with it. 

***

They finally found each other out on the deck at the same time. Barry had been unable to sleep and left his room to observe the planet’s unusually beautiful sky, bursting at the seams with stars. Their time was limited with it after all, so it made sense to take advantage of it. Once outside, he was so taken by the sight of the velvety sky scattered with thousands of points of sparkling light that his mind was entirely silent for a few blissful moments. 

When Lup opened the door to the deck and saw Barry standing at the other end, her heart leapt and her pulse quickened with excitement. She honestly hadn’t expected it, hadn’t even been holding out hope for it, but there he was. Not having to wait four more hours to see him filled her with a childlike energy. 

Once she was about halfway across the deck, she gently called out to greet him so that he wouldn’t be startled by her sudden appearance. He turned to look at her and, upon meeting his eyes, she felt that wave of exhilaration, like wind through the hollow of her chest, that she had become addicted to. 

“Hi, Lup. I can, um -- go back in if you were coming out here to be alone?”

She smiled at the sound of his sleepy voice, at the hint of nervousness, at the way that he spoke quietly even though there was no reason to. 

“Don’t be silly, Barry.” Lup walked up next to him and leaned over the railing, standing a little bit closer to him than usual, feeling warm all over from the mere proximity to him. She almost wanted them to accidentally brush up against each other, even though she knew she’d have a hard time stealthily hiding her face from him.  She wanted to tell him something along the lines of how she’d rather be around him than be alone or that she always enjoyed his company or -- but she couldn’t think of a way to say any of those things without them coming off as maybe a little bit too much. So, she remained silent and quietly watched the stars next to her friend. 

...

The pounding of her heart was intense enough to be distracting, but she was still enjoying their extended, mutual silence together. She stood perfectly still so that she could sense him near her without accidentally touching him. Being that close together under a deep red sky shattered with light was so... 

She drank in the sensation of lightness, of buzzing; of the full body feeling that came from a surge of potent chemicals released at the peak of an anticipation so strong that no other thoughts or emotions could get through. An anticipation of something that couldn’t happen, of course, but it was still such a deeply satisfying and newly discovered feeling to her that she wanted to revel in it, to make it last as long as possible. 

“Oh, wow. Lup, do you see that?” Barry pointed into the distance and it only took her a moment to spot it. There was a brilliant and familiar glow coming from far, far out in the desert. And it was moving. Quickening and then slowing to a crawl, only ever pausing for brief moments, traveling around in an erratic pattern. Lup’s heart sank and drowned in the cold waters of disappointment. She looked over to Barry.

“Welp, guess that’s the end of stargazing. Let’s go wake everyone up.” 

***

The situation was strange enough that they felt it called for reconnaissance. Davenport was hesitant to bring the ship near whatever it was that they had spotted, preferring to stay in the spot that had so far been confirmed as safe. It seemed obvious to him that  _ something  _ had the light, and probably wouldn’t want to give it up. He made it clear that he wanted it to be an information gathering expedition  _ only _ , and that they would decide together how to proceed based on what they found. 

Davenport made the decision on who would go. Their science officer, of course. Lup, for protection, as well as being experienced with looking out for the same types of observations and information as Barry. And Taako, being that he was adept with magics for things like quick escapes, negotiating areas difficult to travel through, as well as additional combat ability. 

As they set out into the dark, Lup tried to keep herself from visibly beaming at being paired up with her two favorite people. They were working, and on their way to something potentially dangerous, but she couldn’t manage to entirely set aside her happiness in that moment. 

  
  


***

 

Barry ran, pushing himself to his limit, determined to make it back to the Starblaster even though his will was shot — he  _ needed  _ to make it back. They had to keep their numbers up as much as possible, especially since a new danger had been revealed and with their more powerful magic users gone. So, he pushed himself to run through the sand, sinking at every step, forcing his feet up and out and begging his legs to wait until later to feel the stress he was putting them under. 

And he knew that the only reason he was getting a bit of a head start was because they were being e--

He almost wretched at the thought, he couldn’t -- couldn’t think about that. He had to process it later. He just needed to get back before the thing was finished and he was caught and consumed. 

_ Before it was finished _ \-- don’t think about that don’t think about that don’t think about-

…

When they had first set out, the happiness emanating from Lup was palpable. Barry noticed and felt calmed by it. They were going to be fine; they made a good team. Especially since he had been getting closer to Taako. 

He really did admire and look up to Taako. His emotional walls were more resilient than Lup and he was definitely difficult to get close to, but they had had some good conversations; even if they were typically short and bookended with jokes or flippant remarks. But, Barry felt like he was steadily learning Taako’s language and recognizing what constituted as affectionate gestures or care for him. He thought back on the handful of times where Taako had softened a bit and offered a few comforting sentences because he saw Barry in distress. It was tenuous sometimes and didn’t always feel like it, but Taako was his friend. And he was certain that Taako cared about him. And he definitely cared about Taako.

They chatted as they marched into the distance, making sure to keep a constant eye on the far off glow. The twins had ended up walking on either side of Barry. Taako linked arms with him, making a joke out of the gesture by saying that Barry was probably going to end up tripping and dying over his own feet because of his shitty dark vision. Lup quickly took it as an opportunity to link arms with Barry, as well. 

Barry was happy to be with them. Lup was happy to be with them. Taako was happy, too, but he was careful to maintain his aloof nature. 

 

They made it to the part of the desert that they had seen from the Starblaster when they first arrived. It was a stretch of land where  hills of loose dirt, approximately the size of the ship, dotted the otherwise flat landscape of sand and scarce desert vegetation. They seemed a little out of place when they had flown over, and in person they were even stranger. They saw the glow shuffling around again and it didn’t look like it was much further away. Barry and Lup decided that they wanted to take the opportunity to grab a sample of the dirt before they got any closer.

Together, they approached the base of one of the hills and Barry reached into his pack to grab sample jars. Lup walked around the perimeter while Taako followed her, looking bored. She knelt down to examine a random spot and ran her hand through the dirt. She called out to Barry.

“It’s really loose. Like, not packed down at all.”

Barry startled himself with a sudden realization. “Yeah, it’s kind of like it — it’s just been dug up? Maybe upward, from something underneath the sand.” 

Lup scrambled to her feet upon hearing a noise and looked up at the top of the mound. 

“Oh fuck. Barry —“

As if on cue, the peak of the hill erupted, spraying rock and dirt that came down on them in a torrential rain. Barry felt heaps of dirt fall on him and his heart raced; the sensation of being buried hit him with a force of fear so strong it completely froze him. Taako was violently hit in the head with a rock and dropped to the ground. A curtain of debris interrupted his view but through the spaces, Barry could see a brilliant swirl of fire that lit up the darkness around them. 

Lup stood fast, unleashing a cone of flame with everything she had, pushing past the pain that the overload of power was burning into her hands. 

Once the dirt stopped raining down, Barry could see and hear what Lup was aiming at. A massive, croaking and screeching  insect was making its way down the crumbling hill, in spite of the faceful of fire that Lup was sending its way. The legs were thick, semi translucent, knobby pillars that ended in feet consisting of nothing but outward facing spikes. The bulbous body was striped yellow and brown and supported a horrifying, monstrous head; peach colored, shaped almost like a human infant, but with bulging, shiny solid black eyes. Below the alien eyes was a mouth that was a constantly moving, incomprehensible tangle of vertical bristles, a row of pincers that moved independently from each other, and what looked like webbing that it seemed to be salivating. It clumsily slid the rest of the way down the hill, directly into Lup’s flame, unbothered. Barry’s mind raced, thinking of what he could do, what he could cast on her or at it or -- but there wasn’t even enough time to think. It was at the bottom of the hill within seconds,  even before Lup could react to try and get away. Its head twitched violently, partially rotating, and it snapped its front leg upward and brought down its spiked foot onto Lup, extinguishing her and her fire. Taako was lying on the ground, unconscious or dead, close to her. The insect was on top of both of their bodies in an instant, and Barry could only watch as it lowered its head, pincers gnashing wildly. 

Barry didn’t want to leave them,  _ he didn’t want to leave them.  _ But there was nothing he could do, and flinging himself towards certain death in a fit of emotion to try and save people who were certainly dead was not fair to the crew. He had to run. He didn’t want to leave them but he  _ had to run. _

And so, Barry ran, pushing himself to his limit, determined to make it back to the Starblaster even though his will was shot.

It wasn’t long until he felt a familiar pressure on his lungs, and his breath started coming through ragged and forced, unable to be pulled back all the way into his chest. Fuck. He  _ would  _ die of an asthma attack while running from an  _ actual  _ threat.

He hadn’t had an attack in so long that he had almost forgotten about it. But, he also hadn’t pushed himself so far and so quickly past his physical limit in a long while. Not to mention that he was already having a difficult time breathing through his panic. 

Four months without them. He had everyone else -- but he already missed them. And, he felt guilty, horrible; but he knew he was going to miss Lup  _ more. _ He loved them all, he really did. 

But, four months of not seeing  _ her _ . 

Of not seeing her come into the lab with coffee for both of them so that she could sit and drink next to him, even though she arguably had no need for caffeine. Four months without her scooting closer to him whenever he was showing her something. Her shimmering eyes trained on him as he spoke. 

He remembered the time when Taako died and he had walked her to his grave. She slipped her hand into his and it was so small compared to his own.

_ Four months _ without those tiny deft hands, fingernails with chipped polish that flaked off in layers of different colors because she was constantly painting over them. 

When he was having trouble sleeping, he wouldn’t hear her walking down the hallway to go to the deck. He wouldn’t lie awake, wondering if he should go out, too. 

He was torn apart that they were gone. But he was happy that they went together. He hated to see the pain that they suffered through when one was without the other. Neither of them should ever have to feel that, to ever be missing the other. Having to experience each other dying must have been the worst part of their whole situation for them. It probably dredged up their deepest fears and, even with knowing that they would be regenerated, they were still having to live out their worst nightmare. 

He thought again about how small and graceful her beautifully scarred hands were and he felt his knees falter as he almost fell to them, almost started crying. But he didn’t have the time or the breath or the power to sob.

His lungs continued to grow tighter until his back was hurting and he was gasping, trying to catch even short breaths of the hot dry air with such wild desperation that his throat was becoming raw. 

There was still so far to go. He wasn’t going to make it. 

 

With the last bit of his breath, he spoke into his stone of farspeech, his voice raspy and his words barely intelligible. 

“They’re gone. I’m. Not -- making it back. Don’t -- come here... The  _ hills  _ are  _ nests.”  _

__

 

__

***

__

Lucretia committed Barry’s last words to paper and wondered what the full meaning of his cryptic message was. The hills are nests. Obviously, it was in reference to the crumbling dirt hills they had flown over at the beginning of the year; but nests for  _ what. _ At least he had been able to give them that last little gift of intel to keep them safe. And he was able to let them know not to go looking for them at risk of losing someone else. There was no one to look for. They were gone.

__

__

__

When they regenerated, she would hear everything about their deaths, about whatever horrors they saw, about the last things that they felt. About the moment when they realized that they were going to die. She would hear it, she would write it, she would read over it again later to make any edits or clarifications, and she would probably read over it again once more, to make sure everything was perfect. She had recorded twenty deaths in her journals, not counting the two of her own. And soon, she would have to turn to a blank page and record three more. 

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If she thumbed through any single one of her journals, she would come across some account of a death or a near-death or something that had terrorized them, haunted their dreams, caused them long-term grief. She might even read about some mistake she had made. Or, it would be pages full of the everpresent implication that she had been powerless, unable to help, or simply not there during something painful that had happened to one of them. Her journals were tomes of death and fear and helplessness; of watching from the shore as Merle was swept away, what it was like seeing him flail, the sounds that he made at the moment that they realized he was lost to them. Of Barry being buried alive and coming home looking half dead, of Taako’s agony when Lup was gone, and vice versa, of the stresses and anxieties that Davenport had confided in her, of... that gut wrenching time at the end of their first year when they lost Magnus and they didn’t know yet that they would have him back. 

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And within it all, there were very few precious moments of happiness. It was all there, in the beautifully gilded, hardcover journals lined up chronologically on the shelves in Davenport’s office. 

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…

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And, Davenport. 

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Every time one of his crew died he was launched into a state of hypervigilance more intense than usual. His thoughts would be dominated by constant fear for the rest of them. It made him count the months, weeks, days, hours they had left, the numbers running constantly through his head. Every day that ended without another disaster was an overwhelming relief. 

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His head would spin as he repeatedly and obsessively listed who they had left, every conceivable scenario that might happen if anyone else was lost, the exact skills and personalities of each person left, what they were most susceptible to, how they could best protect themselves and the others. Playing cards with Merle were the only times where he could keep his thoughts from consuming him for a while.

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He felt such a strong sense of responsibility for each member of his crew, and he always had the sense that it was his fault when anyone was lost. He knew he couldn’t be everywhere at once, and he was the most needed on the ship, meaning that he was typically the least at risk. He was always the safest, and all he did was watch as his crew left on excursions and didn’t come back. He could do nothing but offer advice or orders, to check in; but mostly, he just waited to hear whether they were still alive or not. 

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Even losing one of them would set him on edge for the rest of the year. But three at once? What if that happened again? And he was left alone on the ship? With nothing to do except bite his nails and wait for the day that he could leave the plane and get them all back. 

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He ran over scenarios, counted up the facts, tried to look at the situation in a cold and calculated way because that was the only way he could feel like he had some semblance of control. But, that coldness, that inclination towards strategy and logic -- it was from a place of love. It was so that things didn’t get worse for the people that he cared about and relied on. 

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They had lost their two most powerful spellcasters. They had lost their science officer. They were therefore more vulnerable and they weren’t going to be making much more headway in terms of advancements or learning on that plane. Meaning, they would need to play everything especially carefully. Don’t eat or even _touch_ anything except for the things that had already been absolutely, and without a doubt, confirmed safe. Don’t do anything new, stay inside as much as possible. Don't. The answer to everything for the rest of the year was don't. 

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Their main source of protection at that time was Magnus. Davenport softened and dropped the logic for a brief moment; there was going to be so much pressure on Magnus. Mostly coming from himself. He was already sorry for it. 

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...

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And, Magnus.

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He paced around the perimeter of the ship, over and over, listening, looking, his head on a swivel. At every tiny noise, he prepared himself to fight. The remainder of the crew was depending on him. The whole crew always could use him, but he felt like he seldom ever really protected or saved anyone. What was the point of being strong if he couldn’t save their lives? 

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His eyes stung at the threat of oncoming tears. He should have offered to go with them. Maybe he could have done something. Sacrificed himself while they got away. Or at least got  _ one  _ of them safely back. 

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He knew he couldn’t be everywhere at once, but damn, he wished he could be. Or that he could somehow know ahead of time where he would be most needed, where danger was. It was just so fucking frustrating to be on duty where everything had been safe and fine while somewhere else, his friends were dying. He knew he was most often needed to make sure there were no threats in their immediate area; the ship and whoever was on the ship were always going to be the most important thing. But when no threat to the ship came, he felt useless. 

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There was no clear answer on how to protect everyone the best. There would be frustration for him no matter what. Every loss was a failure that weighed heavily on him for the rest of the year. 

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All he could do then was diligently guard the ship, make sure whatever got the three of them didn’t come for the rest of them. But what if it did, and what if he couldn’t keep them safe, either?

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At least he had Merle there. As long as Magnus could keep someone from being killed outright, Merle could help with healing them, with keeping them all at their healthiest.

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...

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And, Merle.

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It was only a couple of hours after they had received Barry’s message and Merle missed those kids so much already. 

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When they lost folks, he tended to gravitate towards Magnus. Aside from generally enjoying Magnus’s company, it brought him some comfort to feel like they had a better chance at helping the others together. His healing combined with Magnus’s strength; maybe they could keep the survivors safe. He felt truly sorry for having left them behind so many times. He had been working harder not be so careless, though for him it wasn’t necessarily carelessness that got him into trouble; it was him wanting…  _ needing  _ to find ways to enjoy each of the worlds they ended up on. There were times where he felt like he wasn’t very appreciated, but it was in those times when he returned to them, even when he had been gone because of his own mistake, that he saw their faces and was reminded that he was loved. 

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His entire purpose in the crew was to  _ keep _ them from dying. But he couldn’t be everywhere at once. He and Magnus probably went on the least amount of outings because protecting everyone on and near the ship was always the highest priority. The crew members that were on board, that could fly the ship and get them out at the end of the year -- they were obviously the most important to keep safe. 

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He wanted so much for everyone to be happy, and he was acutely aware of how difficult that was for them considering the hardships and uncertainty of the life they were living. And when they did find joy in something, it was typically pretty short lived and often followed by tragedy. There was a constant background noise of danger, of the end of every world they saw, of the possible end of existence itself. There were few spaces in between where happiness could be found. 

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He wanted those spaces to be discovered as often as possible and to be appreciated by them; for them to at least have a handful of moments. Just some memories they could make in between the repeating apocalypses that they could hold on to, could think back on and find a little bit of light during the darker times. Those kinds of moments seemed especially hard for Lucretia and Davenport to come by, and they didn’t seem to want to put much effort into finding them. They often had to be carefully folded in with everyone else’s good times. 

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At least there often seemed to be joy between Taako and Lup when they were together. They exuded energy and happiness when they were with each other, and it was wonderful to see and to get to be around. Lup and Barry too, come to think of it. He had been noticing what a strong air of peaceful calm seemed to surround them and how they were just happy to be in each other’s presence. Very different from the rambunctious, energizing aura when her and Taako were together. But joy, nonetheless. He was happy to see it. Always happy to see the ways in which the whole crew had been forming unique bonds to each other individually, and with each other as a group. 

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Lup, Barry and Taako. He was going to be sorely missing those kids for the next four months.  

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	20. Green Lace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Twenty

Barry heard Lup make a high pitched noise. She was lost somewhere in the reeds, and he was splitting apart dense clumps of swamp grass, searching. A metal bucket sat on a rock near him and his jeans were rolled up to just over the top of his boots while he trudged through shallow, green, stagnant water. She made a noise again, from a completely different spot; she moved so damn fast. He knew he was going to lose before it even started, but he was still having a lot of fun. 

 

“How many you got, Barry?” 

“Hah, uhh -- none, still.” 

Her head popped above the reeds, ears perked up. “You’re actually trying, right?  _ This is serious _ .” 

Barry laughed, crouching down and looking carefully into the clump of grass in front of him. “I know! I’m just -- I think I’m not stealthy enough. I’m probably scaring them all over to your side.”

Her head appeared over the reeds again and she swiveled around, looking for Barry like a periscope. “Are you implying that I’m only winning because you’re scaring them over here? Barold, I need you to acknowledge my superior frog-catching abilities. I  _ told  _ you that I kick ass at this.”

“I never said you didn’t!” Barry stood up, looking for her, but she had sunk back down into the reeds. “I was just laughing! I didn’t know you were serious.” 

“Barry. Have I ever not been serious with you?” She stood up again and saw him looking for her from the other side of the swamp they were stomping around in. 

He turned and they finally caught each other’s eyes. “So, does that mean you were serious when you said that Merle’s singing that one time made you throw up in your mouth?” 

Lup’s eyebrows raised and she held back a smile and laugh, trying to keep up her act. “Barold! I told you that in  _ confidence _ .” 

Something caught her eye and she dropped back down into the reeds. A couple seconds later, Barry heard her disembodied voice yell to him, “That’s twelve!” 

“Yeah, I think that maybe you’ve probably beat me?” 

“Aww, not gonna do first to twenty?” 

He laughed. “I’m pretty sure I could be here all day and not catch a single one.” 

He heard squishing footsteps approaching until Lup pushed her way through the reeds and appeared next to him. 

“Wanna pet one of mine?” 

Barry held out a hand while Lup grabbed a frog from her bucket and dropped it in his open palm. It immediately hopped out of his hand, belly-flopping into the water. Lup couldn’t stop laughing. 

“You can’t even catch one that is _in your hand_ , Barry. I love it.” She tripped herself up saying the word ‘love’ near Barry. That was ridiculous. It was in a totally benign context. Gods, she was way too messed up over the whole... thing, sometimes; fucking immature

She exhaled through her nose and smiled like a  _ normal person. _

“Think we should maybe get back to camp?” 

“Sounds good, Lup. Uh -- what are uh, we doing with these guys?” He motioned towards her bucket. 

Lup pouted. “I guuuesss I’ll let them go.” She tilted the bucket towards Barry. “Just take one last look and  _ remember how badly I kicked your ass _ .” 

…

After Lup reluctantly tipped over her bucket to let her amphibious bounty loose and the two of them returned to dry land, they found their way back to the trail that they had been following through the wetlands. They had both been particularly excited for the environment that they had found there on their twentieth plane. There was such a wide variety of plants, habitats, small animals in all variations of sizes and colors, and they were flush with ideas for experiments and had been finding all variety of potential materials with practical applications. The planet was the perfect amount of alien and familiar for them to really dig into researching and discovering. And also, it was just a lot of fun for Barry and Lup. The conditions were perfect for hiking and camping and everything had been safe so far. 

They followed the winding path into the sun as it was setting. The dying trees emerging from stagnant swamp water around them were draped with sheets of moss that hung from the blackened, decaying branches. The glittering bright sun poured through the spaces between the lichenous lace, turning the edges of the dark green curtains on fire. 

As they walked for a few moments in silence, Lup looked over from the corner of her eye at Barry. His expression was far away and dreamy as he stared down the winding path, the slightest smile on his face. He seemed really happy. And she wondered what he was thinking about. She turned her attention downard, to the trickling strings of fresh water that were beginning to form on either side of the path as the ends of the streams further ahead fed into the wetlands. The glint of the setting sun lighting up the water with glimmering threads of luminescence caught her eye and drew her in, reminding her of the ethereally beautiful threads that surrounded and reformed them each year. It had never stopped being an overwhelmingly strange experience, but at that moment she felt a fondness for the beauty of the luminous fibers that revived, renewed, and resurrected her and her friends each year. She could almost justify giving them some level of personification in her heart at that moment, though she was sure that the threads were not their own, sentient thing, but just a byproduct of planar bonds and the bond engine. But who knew, really. Who knew anything. Maybe they were their tiny saviors and maybe they had some sort of investment in or love for the crew. 

As her eye was drawn to the trickling bits of water next to the path, she missed seeing a stone in her way, and, despite her usual grace, the toe of her boot hooked onto it and she stumbled forward, almost falling flat on her face. But Barry, who had just moved his eyes away from the sunset to look over at her instead, saw her losing her balance and reacted without thinking, turning to her and throwing an arm in front of her, his other around her back, stopping her from falling and placing her in between his extended arms as she recovered her balance. With both of her hands grasping the forearm that he placed in front of her, she stood upright while laughing at herself. She titled back, hands on his arm still, and looked at him from the side, smirking. She tried holding back her laughter at herself, but was caught off guard by the feeling of his arms hung loosely on either side of her and couldn’t stop giggling. Barry nervously laughed.

“You okay?” he asked as she reluctantly let go of him and he lowered his arms. 

“You saved my life, Barold!” Lup lightly pushed his shoulder and her smile pressed a little bit too hard at the corners of her mouth, feeling obvious that there was more she wanted to say and feel and express and and…

“Thanks,” she said, and then before she could think about it too hard, she linked an arm through his, but refused to look at him as she did, and trained her eyes on the path in front of them, hoping that he couldn’t see the smile that she tried to restrain to the side of her mouth facing away from him. 

Barry was working on telling himself that everything was fine and normal and fine and okay, and that linking arms with his friend wasn’t a big deal and that he had seen her do that with other people in the crew and it didn’t mean anything. And, Taako had done that to him before as well and obviously it was just something that the twins did; besides everyone was pretty close at that point and he was obviously the one with the most issues with being physically close. He needed to do something about his hang ups so that he wouldn’t read into or be so overwhelmed by situations like that. 

It was around that point in his scattered thoughts that they arrived at the wooden bridge that they had crossed earlier when they had hiked away from camp and out into the swamp. And it was about halfway across the bridge that there was a sudden, loud, cracking noise that was accompanied by Barry’s arm yanking out of Lup’s as his leg was consumed by a break in a splintered board in the bridge. 

 

…

 

“It’s really -- it’s fine, I can just hop or --” 

“Barry, I swear, you need to shut-it because I am  _ helping you until we get to camp dammit. _ ”

Lup shuffled her feet and made it along with some difficulty under the pressure of Barry’s arm over her shoulders as she supported his weight. The force of his leg going through the bridge slat and falling forward all at once had left his leg -- not doing so well. It was either extremely swollen and badly injured, or most likely broken. Either way, he couldn't’ be walking on it, and they didn’t have much further to go until their camp, so of course Lup was going to help him and he was just going to have to deal with it. They had called for Merle already, who was making his way towards their camp and would be only a couple of hours. 

Once they had gotten back, Lup’s shoulders were worn out from supporting Barry, but she stuck through taking him the rest of the way to his tent and helped to gently lower him down. As he sat at the entrance of his tent, he winced while adjusting his leg against the ground. She kept an arm around him and sat down with him, concern written all over her face. 

“How’s it feeling?” 

“Eh, I think the endorphins are wearing off, I’m -- ugh, fuck -- uh, feeling it a lot more, now.” 

“Oh no, Barry.” Lup sat on the ground close to him, rubbing small circles into his back, stressed over the pain in his voice and face. “Anything I can do?”

“I mean, I don’t think there is a-- shit, wow, okay, uhh -- I don’t think there’s anything to do until Merle gets here.” 

“Okay, okay, well… try not to move your leg at all, and let me help you lay down in the tent so that the sun isn’t in your face?” The setting sun was aimed directly at them and Lup didn’t want Barry getting all burnt up on top of everything else.

“Uh, yeah I guess, sure.” Barry tried leaning back a bit on his own before she scolded him and put a supporting arm behind his lower back. 

“Alright… just dip your head under the entrance, we can leave your legs out so you don’t move it any more, let me just get your pillow and -- here.” She helped him lean into the tent, his legs out the door on the ground, his head on a pillow inside. And then she crawled into the tent next to him, sitting at the back, behind his head, worrying over him. 

He sighed and closed his eyes, trying to will away the pain, trying to not  _ look _ like he was in as much pain as he was in front of Lup. Opening his eyes back up, he saw her looking down at him, smiling slyly. He felt himself unable to say anything and just kept staring at her, wondering why she was looking at him like that. 

“Man... I wish I still had my bucket of frogs. You’re so vulnerable right now, I could have just dumped them out on you.” 

Barry laughed. “Why would you do that, Lup?” 

“I don’t know! I’m impulsive! It sounds fun. You, all covered in frogs. What would you do? How would you react? I could take notes and count it as science!” 

Barry shook with laughter, and winced again as the shaking upset his leg. “Ah, fuck. Ya gotta stop making me laugh, Lup.” He stifled his laughter as best as he could, still wincing slightly and looking up at her through squinty eyes. He had his hands folded over his chest one on top of the other and she set a hand on top of his. 

“Sorry, I promise I’m not trying to kill you.” 

He smiled and looked up at her. “So you're telling me that you didn’t sabotage the bridge? Because I’m not buying that.” 

She only laughed a little bit -- and she didn’t move her hand from his. Barry felt himself turning red. She had moved to lying on her side, curled around his head, propping herself up with an elbow leaning into the ground, her hand still on top of his. Looking down at him, she smiled sympathetically. “I hope it doesn’t hurt  _ too  _ much?” 

“Heh. I- I’ll live.”

“Have you ever broken something before?” 

“I, uh -- yeah. When I was a kid.” 

“Ooh, what happened?” Something was making her feel… open and brave and soft with him, and she let her fingers move across his, just a bit. 

“Well uh --” Barry’s voice grew thick in the back of his throat. He was having trouble not completely choking on his own voice with Lup’s hand on his. He felt that old guilt rise up again; she was comforting him because he was injured and he was losing his mind over her touching his hand. That was just her, that was just how she treated people; it wasn’t a huge deal. He needed to get more used to being close with others. He’d had twenty years to get used to harmless physicalities and affection and being in close proximity to other people and he was still struggling with it.

“Well?” She swiped across the top of his hand with her thumb to indicate her eagerness to hear his story. 

“I, uh -- it wasn’t a huge deal. Fell out of a tree when I was a kid.” 

“Ooh! I never took you for a tree-climber.” 

“Hah. Well, I was when I was eight.” 

She removed her hand from his and raised a thoughtful finger to her mouth. “Well, maybe when you’re not all busted up we could see if you have those skills left somewhere still? It’d be fun to hang out in a tree together; no one else ever wants to climb stuff with me.”

“That would be fun, actually. I miss climbing trees. I guess there was a point where I started staying inside reading books more than being outside and I lost my tree-climbing chops.”

She set her hand back on top of his, and sighed despite herself. “Yeah, that  _ would  _ be fun.” 

She was hovering over him, looking down into his eyes. He felt so peaceful looking up at her. He was hardly able to care about the pain shooting through his body simply from her small, soft hand settled on top of his.  

Gods, he wanted to say something. Even just… something to let her know how important she was. Something to make her feel _good_ , make her feel needed, not even anything for himself or that had to do with him, just … what could he say right then that might make her smile? 

 

“I heard y’all need a doctor?” 

 

Lup broke eye contact with Barry to look up and out the tent door, then looked back down at him.

“I think Merle is here.” She smiled wide, “let’s get you fixed up, yeah Bear?” 

***

He counted up the years in his head. 

The end of the ninth year was when he figured it out. Figured out that there were -- feelings he was having. And there he was, in the first few months of their twentieth year. A decade. And he could still feel his heart jump whenever she so much as looked at him. 

When he was restless and unable to sleep at night, sometimes he could hear her walking down the hall, heading for the deck. And he would wonder if he should join her. He’d be on the edge of gathering the courage and could feel the rush of adrenaline each time he almost threw off the covers to go after her. But instead, he would close his eyes and conjure up the image of her watching the stars next to him. Her eyes so still, her lips fixed on the verge of a smile, her breath turning deep and wistful, their elbows almost touching as they rested against the railing. 

He reflected back on the first time he had noticed the feeling. It was when she had comforted him; in his room, kneeling in front of him, hand on his knee. She had listened to him and he felt so comfortable pouring his heart out to her. It came naturally to be open with her, to tell her anything and everything. And then, all of the words she offered him were just so perfect. Empathetic, meaningful, wise. She turned it all around, made him feel whole and unafraid; even a bit hopeful. Then, as she got up to leave, she had left a small kiss on the top of his head, in his hair. His face turned scarlet at the faint memory of something that had happened a decade before. He felt so cared for. It was a feeling that he hadn’t had since he was a child. 

He hoped that she felt cared for. Well -- he knew she did. She had Taako, the person that had been with her for her entire life. They obviously both cared for each other deeply. A care that was more than most people could ever hope to experience. Knowing that she had someone in her life who was the embodiment of unconditional love and support for her -- that made him infinitely happy. Happy that she had always had that source of joy, even in her bleakest times, happy that she always had support when she needed it most. He was so glad that she had never been alone, that she had a person who was home to her, that she had a childhood alongside the most important person in the world to her. That she was always cared for the way she had made him feel cared for at that moment in his room, and in so many moments since then. 

...

He could barely remember his time as a child. The frequent highs of excitement and anticipation; he remembered that. Having the strong belief that every day was packed full of potential for something amazing to happen. And, having a low bar for what constituted as amazing meant that that belief was often true. He could recall those excited, hopeful feelings. 

He remembered a couple of times when he had scared his mother. He couldn’t remember what he did. Just that she was scared. And in those times, the outcome always was the feeling of knowing that he was cared for.

He had done something... something caused by the fact that he just didn’t know better. But, she wasn’t angry; she understood how a child’s mind worked. She was empathetic like that, unlike other parents he had seen who had forgotten what it was like to be a child and expected their kids to be on the same level as them emotionally. Those times where she had been frightened, he was held close and told that it was okay, even though he wasn’t the one who needed to know that it was okay. But he knew it was; whatever it was that had happened, it was okay. He felt it. The warmth of safety, of knowing things were  _ going to be okay _ . The feeling of another person’s relief and happiness.

He wanted some guarantee. That Lup would always be happy. Always be safe. That she would feel that sensation of things being okay. 

Someday, maybe. Maybe things would end happily. Maybe they would win and be able to stop and they could all be happy and safe. It seemed like such a faraway, intangible concept. 

But, so many other impossible things had happened already; maybe that could happen, too?

 

***

 

It was early morning, and immediately following the crew’s breakfast meeting, Merle strolled through the village of Lodoliand, the small settlement outside of the wetlands where they had landed the ship near six months earlier. The locals there held general spiritual beliefs, but did not have a designated god or place of worship. Merle had set out right away to rectify that and the villagers easily embraced Pan and the idea of building a church. 

He quickly and easily bonded with the villagers during the construction of the temple, making it easy for the rest of the crew to acquire jobs helping with farming and hunting, giving them the opportunity to get the ship well supplied once more. 

The locals were all very soft-spoken and kind. They were not furred, necessarily, but velvety, and colored a kind of greyish brown. They were on average around eight feet, with long sweeping tails tipped with an unruly mop of jet black hair. Their buildings were made of slate grey mudstone bricks arranged in intricate patterns and carefully lined with black paint, turning what was an otherwise bland village into an optical illusion. The lack of variation in color combined with heavy variation in patterns and shapes was tricky on the eyes and made the crew almost dizzy whenever they walked through the narrow streets. 

Merle had convinced them to make something a little bit softer looking for their place of worship. Instead of mudstone, they gathered green wood and vines from the surrounding wetlands and got to work erecting a lush, viridescent sanctuary to the glory of Pan. 

Well into their stay there, Merle was helping with putting the finishing touches on the church when a group of the Lodolians that had gone out on a hunting trip came rushing into the village, their party missing a few members. They ran to the construction site where Merle and the other villagers were working, showing up out of breath and panicked. Merle set down his hammer and approached the hunters.

“Hey guys, what’s the deal?” 

Shorl, the leader of their group stepped forward and knelt down to talk to Merle, a gesture that they had started with him early on; being as soft spoken as they were, they needed to be close to be heard. Despite their large stature and body riddled with scars, they were very gentle, as all of the Lodolians were, and had become especially fond of Merle. They settled a heavy hand onto his shoulder. 

“There was a bright light, Merle. On the opposite ledge of the cliffside where we were hunting. Some of us were closer to the cliff edge, and they --” Shorl choked on words they didn’t want to say. “The ones who were close to the cliff, close to the light that we saw, they stopped responding when we were calling them back into the woods to help us. They walked away, they wouldn’t even turn around at our voices. And they kept walking toward the light and… off of the edge of the cliff. Merle. You asked us about a light when you first got here. What does it mean? Why did they -- why did they die because of it?” 

Merle looked down at his feet. He mirrored Shorl in placing a hand onto their shoulder, gripping on to them as he felt a pang of guilt shoot through him. It wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t anyone’s fault when the light did something terrible. But it still hurt. And it still felt like their responsibility. 

“It means -- well, it’s something very powerful and we don’t know a whole lot about it. And while it took some of your people, it means that… if we can get it and take it away with us, it means that you’ll all have a fighting chance here when we leave.” 

Merle looked up from the ground and met Shorl’s confused expression with a heaviness that was like a rock in his heart. 

“There’s more going on than I’ve had the heart to tell you. I just wanted us to have some time to work on something hopeful, first. But, I think we should have a talk.” With that, Merle gently pat Shorl’s shoulder and they started on the path away from the village. They walked together and Merle started the hard process of telling someone he had grown to care for that they were going to have to fight for their lives, and that he wasn’t going to be there to help them when the time came.

***

Davenport looked up from the map spread out on his office desk to see Taako standing in the doorway, looking bored. 

 

“Oh dear gods, how did you get in here!? I thought the door was locked?” 

 

“Never mind that for now,” Taako approached Davenport’s desk and sat down in one of the chairs. “Look … if we’re going to get the light from up on top of the  _ treacherous cliff _ , maybe instead of sending out team after team we just do a drive-by? We can all stay inside that way.” 

 

“I just worry…” Davenport pinched the bridge of his nose as he stared down at his desk and heavily sighed. “I worry about us all going after it at once. Or the ship getting damaged. Taako,  _ you know _ that if the ship is compromised -- that’s it, right? You know that?” 

 

Taako turned in his seat and draped his legs over the arm of the chair. “Davenport -- may I call you Davenport?”

 

“I, uh, yeah? That’s my-”

 

“Look, Davenport. You get this ship out of here at the end of the year  _ every  _ year. And you’ve done that for the past twenty years, during the  _ literal apocalypse _ . I think you can handle flying us around a little bit more often during our stays when things are chill. Doesn’t have to only ever be out of necessity or in tiny short hops. Let’s just fucking go, I don’t think there’s going to be a huge difference in our safety between sitting still in a place we don’t know and moving around a bunch in a place we don’t know. And Magnus didn’t spend all that time getting that arm on the ship for it to never be used.”

 

“Taako. I hear what you’re saying. But also, we are alive right now, aren’t we? Have I not kept us safe so far?”

 

“Fair point, my man, and I hear what  _ you’re _ saying, but we’ve also been mostly running. I’m feeling like we should be a bit more proactive because this is getting exhausting. Hunkering down isn’t going to do shit unless our only goal is to live for the rest of eternity, never staying in one place longer than a year, you feel me? Personally, I’d like to have something else to look forward to. So maybe we get our game faces on and start running a little bit more aggro.”

 

Davenport sat in his chair, facing Taako across the desk. He propped his elbows on the desk and buried his face in his hands, massaging at his temples with his thumbs.

“You may have a point.”

 

“I usually do.” Taako shifted back to sitting upright in his chair and leaned in close. “I know you feel like you’re the only one holding us all together, and you’re stressing over it. You’re gonna fry yourself out coming at things that way, and  _ that  _ is how mistakes end up happening. You need to share the load a bit. Your part in this is, without a doubt,  _ very fucking important _ , which is all the more reason to trust in your crew and let them take care of business sometimes. So, trust in the work that Magnus did and let’s see if we can’t go swoop that bad boy up, yeah?” 

 

Davenport set his hands down on the desk in front of him and gave Taako a thoughtful smile. 

 

“Why not. Let’s go for it.” 

 

***

The night before they had all decided that they would fly out to get the light, Lup and Taako spent the evening in their room together, goofing off before the day of work ahead of them. Lup was trying to sew some beads that she had been given by a villager on to the collar of a favorite black shirt of hers, and Taako was sketching rough pictures of outfits he wished he had. Lup had steered the conversation towards things that she had been working on with Barry several times throughout their meandering chatter. It felt obvious to Taako that she wanted to talk about him, and may have been trying to suss out any unknown opinions on Barry that Taako might have had. 

 

“And  _ then  _ he was telling me about how the bond engine works and --”

 

“I mean, I  _ know _ \-- ish, how it works, Lu.”

 

“No, no I know, but like, really _really_ in depth, and it’s super interesting. Like, mostly hanging off of multiverse theories; so you know, basically how all constants can take on any value, so there’s an infinite combination of constants that can be realized throughout infinitely as many universes, ranging from the completely bizarre and alien to literally only a single particle being different from another universe -- _so_ , because there is that much variety, but also similarity, in the span of all potential multiverses, that means that bonds can be created, or are already existing, between infinity repeating persons, places, things, inanimate or living and-”

 

“Hot damn, LuLu,  take a breath every once in a while.” 

 

Lup rolled her eyes at her brother. “Do you not want to hear about it?” 

 

He could hear the disappointment in her voice. “No, it’s not that, just... okay. I know I asked you this before, and I know better than to try and pressure you into talking about  _ anything _ , so I’m not doing that, okay? I’m just going to ask, and you don’t have to say a word, but like… is there something going on with you and Barry?” 

 

Lup was taken by surprise, and she felt like all of the momentum, all of the words that she had just had ready to burst from her became bricks in her throat. 

 

“I, uh. Shit. Well.”

 

Taako slowly formed a wider and wider smile as his sister faltered and failed to find words to put to an answer that was obviously not going to be one of  _ complete _ denial. 

 

“Don’t look at me like that!” Lup straightened herself and pushed her hair back, then laced her fingers together and started flicking her thumbnails against each other; fidgeting, stalling. 

 

“There’s, umm...  _ Something _ . But I don’t know what. And I don’t want it to be a whole thing! It would be weird, so I don’t want to say anything. And, besides, I don’t even really know, so-” 

 

“Okay, okay. We don’t have to talk about it any more than you want to. And you know I won’t say anything.” He put an arm around his sister and let his head lay on her shoulder. “Besides, there is nothing in the world that would make me ruin what is sure to be a grand spectacle of you two dorks eventually professing your undying love to each other; I can’t  _ wait  _ to see that. Just give me a heads-up so I can make popcorn.”

 

Lup pushed his head off of her shoulder and punched his arm, her face scrunched up angrily. 

 

“Oh no, Lu, now you’ve done it.” Taako grinned mischievously as he bounced off of the bed and faked making a dash for the door, miming taking in a deep breath as if he were about to start yelling something. Before he could even get all the way through his teasing, Lup was on him, tearing a sheet off of the bed and covering him in it, as if she were capturing him in a net. She tried holding the sheet around him as he flailed, and they were both screaming laughing as they toppled into their bedroom door, making a loud thud that echoed down the hallway. 

 

Barry heard the noise from the lab where he was reading, and immediately jumped to his feet and hurried down the hall, panicking; it sounded serious. But, halfway down the hall, Barry could hear the screeching laughter of the twins, and had a pretty good idea that the noise wasn’t anything to be worried about. He smiled to himself at the sound of their glee and thought again about how happy he was that Lup and Taako had each other. 

 

***

 

Opening up to Taako, even though it was only a tiny bit, solidified the reality of Lup’s feelings, and she found herself wanting to say something,  _ anything _ , so badly. 

 

She had gone back to very lightly touching Barry sometimes, when it felt appropriate, but she would still blush and could only do it if she could hide her face. But her body was screaming to get closer to him; to run her hand across his unshaven face instead of quickly scratching it like she used to, to smooth his hair and tangle her fingers in it instead of just ruffling it. To squeeze his hand instead of his shoulder, to nuzzle her nose against his instead of bopping it with a finger. But even those lesser, playful versions of the touches she wanted, she had stopped. With a couple of exceptions in… moments of weakness, she would only sometimes quickly touch his shoulder as an acknowledgement before she left the lab, or gently tap his upper arm to quietly get his attention when he was deep in thought. 

 

_ Gods, when he was deep in thought he was so attractive and captivating and she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. She wanted to know what he was thinking, she wanted to see if she could guess by quietly watching him. Could she learn what his every twitch meant, what he was saying to himself when his brows furrowed? She wanted to understand the secret language of his silence. _

 

She knew that he didn’t feel the same way as she did, and she wanted to respect that he was flustered and jumpy at her touch, that she made him tense, that it wasn’t professional to touch him so much. That he was an incredibly capable and intelligent man who only ever became more talented and who worked hard to broadly increase his skill set every year. He really was amazing. And they were friends, good friends, of course. But he was still a colleague, an accomplished scientist, a genius. And he deserved to be taken seriously. He didn’t deserve someone intentionally making him blush and intentionally distracting him from his work. And if she really did like him, she would aid him instead of pulling his attention away. Treat him like an adult instead of making him feel like a kid. 

 

But still. Her face grew hot at the thoughts and daydreams that she couldn’t keep at bay. Being side by side with him in their chairs in the lab, their arms touching against each other, turning to look at each other, faces close, drawing near him, him drawing near her, their paces matching, their trajectory towards each other a perfect compliment, like a hinge closing. Very tips of noses touching, foreheads drawing to rest against each other -- stuck at that moment for what would seem like an eternity, very slightly tilting, noses moving to touch from the sides, lips so close that you could anticipate their inevitable touch. That drunken, hazy feeling right before a kiss, a  _ first  _ kiss with someone, one that was wanted so badly that it ached.  _ That _ moment, drawn out for an infinity. She couldn’t bring herself to kiss him in her daydreams. It would never happen in real life, and she couldn’t take that last step towards torturing herself even more than she already was. 

 

That was something she had never felt before… anticipating,  _ wanting  _ a kiss. They had always just happened, always had been an impulsive action, something fun, something to do. It had always been like scratching an itch for intimacy. It wasn’t something she had ever fantasized about, wasn’t something that quickened her pulse just to  _ think  _ about _.  _ Not even more intimate interactions got her so flustered. Brief physicalities, flings, messing around; it all had only ever felt like fun, something nice. She had always just generally liked giving and getting physical attention. 

 

She thought about how when she had been more handsy with him in the past, she didn’t appreciate it in the way she would have then. But, it would have been weird and  _ extra _ disrespectful if she had been touching him a bunch because of liking him, without him knowing. 

 

It was just -- infatuation, something like that, from being around him so much and admiring him. It was  _ not a big deal  _ and she could keep it in check. She would just ride it out, let it happen, and continue their friendship. Everything would be fine.

 

She paced back and forth on the deck, stuck in her thoughts, trying to kill time and be at least a little bit patient before making her way to the kitchen to make coffee and insert herself into Barry’s space in the lab. 

 

They had successfully retrieved the light, though. So, she was going to have to be working with him a lot over the remainder of the year. And she didn’t mind the idea of that, at all. 


	21. The Beach Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Twenty One

Barry saw… a  _ lot  _ of Lup that year. Time-wise, certainly, but also in other ways. 

 

Lup had never been one for modesty and was very comfortable with her body. But up until then she had been, for the most part, professional. She mainly wore the clothes assigned by the IPRE because they were comfortable, resilient, good for working in the field, and were able to keep up with her adventurous habits. When it was especially hot, she would dress down as far as shorts and a crop top. In their free time together going out or drinking or generally hanging out, she wore some of her favorite stuff that she had brought from their home world; colorful showy items, fun elaborate black pieces, even some clothes and accessories that she had made herself. She had only started off with two months worth of clothes; mostly outfits meant to be rotated in and out, each with a specific purpose like various weather conditions or for outdoor work. And, she had been limited in what she had been able to pick up in the planes they had visited where shops existed, considering that any local currency they procured had to go to supplies first. 

 

But, everyone had collectively decided to shed all professionalism for the entire year, so of course Lup did too. And she didn’t believe in shame, modesty, or double standards. So she was topless, for a large part of that year. 

 

She was experiencing something new, though. Shyness. It was a constant hum in the back of her head, wondering whether or not she was being noticed by a certain person. Hoping he was okay with it. Of course Barry wouldn’t think anything  _ bad  _ of it, but he might be shy about that sort of thing, too. She was fairly certain that he himself wasn’t going to be shirtless at any point that entire year. 

 

…

 

In that first week, Barry knew that it wasn’t something to get flustered over, he just wasn’t entirely sure how to react. He was mostly afraid of not knowing where to have his eyes. He couldn’t even decide which would be more awkward; him passing his eyes over somewhere he shouldn’t, or him obviously overcompensating and constantly averting his eyes or being entirely unable to look at her, at all. He was just so afraid of accidentally disrespecting Lup or making her feel uncomfortable, so he had ended up being a little avoidant altogether. Bodies were just that; bodies, and his feelings for her were not about her body at all, so why should he be getting flustered? 

 

He was also struggling with knowing that he was going to stick out if he didn’t look ‘beach-appropriate’. Bodies were just bodies after all, but he wasn’t entirely comfortable with showing his. He was generally not used to being exposed; he had never really been in a situation where any level of exposure was called for. He had gone to the beach before, but he liked to go when it was overcast, especially in the fall. He enjoyed it when it was empty, when the water was more steely than blue, when the waves were angry and he could walk along the shoreline hearing nothing but the rhythmic sound of water rushing across sand. He would always wear a comfortable coat and walk aimlessly with just himself, his thoughts, and a small notebook in his pocket. 

 

He wasn’t necessarily ashamed of his body -- he really didn’t have a lot of feelings towards it at all, but he wasn’t used to it being seen; especially not in public. If he had aged normally… fuck, he’d have been on his way to seventy. Probably wouldn’t have suddenly decided to go around shirtless at that age. So, it just wouldn't have been something that he ever did in his life. When he started thinking of it that way, it seemed -- wrong. Such a simple thing, never done for his entire life. He had tried so many new things in their journey that he would have never thought of trying before, and he was glad for all of them. Things that he simply would have never done had his life continued on their home world. And every one of those things had helped him grow, had made him feel like more of a person, more relatable to others, and just -- happier. 

 

Fuck it. It was just another one of those things when it came down to it. It was only uncomfortable because it was new, and he was only hesitating because he had never done it before. Just get over it, do it real quick before even thinking about it, take the plunge, and then -- after that first time it wouldn’t be a big deal. The only way it was going to be a big deal was if he waited any longer. There would get to be a point where the opportunity would feel like it had passed and it would be too awkward to try anymore. 

 

He was sitting against a tree with a book, even though he didn’t have the focus to read; he was mainly looking for an excuse to have some space from everyone else. They were all so much more comfortable than him and it had left him feeling like the odd one out. But he wasn’t going to spend the year feeling like that. Barry set his book down, stood up, inhaled, and then pulled his shirt off as fast as he could before he had the chance to think about it. He threw it to the ground, covering his book. Immediately the feeling of the sun and the slight breeze against his body -- it made him feel buoyant, excited; new. It was going to be a good day. 

 

...

 

As they noticed Barry approaching from the other side of the beach, Taako and Magnus started commenting to each other on him  _ actually  _ being shirtless and how they didn’t think that was going to happen, that they could have placed bets on it with how certain they had been. Lup shot them both a look. “Just, don’t. Okay? Don’t.” 

 

Taako pouted. “Aww c’mon, he's cool. He handles being teased now and then just  _ fine _ .” 

 

Lup shook her head vigorously. “Nuh-uh. Not this. I don’t want a single comment from either of you. Just treat it like it’s not a big deal. Because it isn’t.” Lup turned away from them and looked back to Barry, who sheepishly smiled and waved to her as he approached.

 

He was determined to be casual, to not draw attention to himself, to give no hint of his nervousness. And if he got flak for it from Taako, he was going to laugh it off. He wasn’t going to be visibly embarrassed, he wasn’t going to pull away or emotionally retreat. Even if he was internally losing his shit, he had committed himself to it. He was doing something new, he was growing, and he was sure that he was going to feel better, that it would be yet another thing that he would learn that he actually enjoyed. 

 

But gods. Lup was looking right at him. Seeing him shirtless for the first time. And, in shorts to his knees. That was about seventy five percent of his body that was exposed, just out there in the open, and she was standing not too far away and he was  _ walking closer to her and he was buzzing with nervous energy under her gaze, wishing he could read her mind, wondering what she could possibly be thinking.  _

 

And he made it to them. Lup, Taako, Magnus. And no one said anything awkward or teasing, which was almost weirder than if they had. Lup was smiling at him in a way that he knew meant that she was happy for him and that she appreciated that what he was doing was new and difficult.    

 

Lup made a mental note to make sure to keep even more of a physical distance between herself and Barry than usual. If they brushed against each other it would be skin on skin, and if she hugged him... oh my gods. She would be making him uncomfortable, and she would be tormenting herself on top of it. Even if she  _ kind of _ wanted that to happen, it absolutely could not. No question. 

 

*******

 

Taako wasn’t surprised. He had suspicions for a while. Like, basically almost since Barry and Lup had first started spending time together. And he had only just been able to needle out a half-confession from Lup the year before. It took those dorkuses forever to figure it out. And they  _ still  _ hadn’t even completely put it together. At least they both seemed about equally as oblivious as the other. Taako was already exhausted just from thinking about their whole sitch, so he set it aside and figured he probably would for the rest of the cycle. That year was about Taako and his time alone with the Wavecarver. He didn’t know when he’d have another chance to practice his newly invented hobby, or if he’d even want to after that year. So, his time was going to be dedicated to him, himself, and his surfing. Except for the time he was going to put into helping Barry learn how to swim, of course. But, at least Barry was giving back by being a captive audience to Taako’s prowess on the waves in the early mornings. Looking cool wasn’t as fun without anyone to witness it. 

 

While he was taking a break, floating idly on his board with his feet dragging in the water, he watched as Magnus hucked a piece of driftwood impressively high. From the deck of the ship, Lup used it for some unnecessarily showy target practice, completely decimating the piece of wood as she kept it going in the air with short bursts of hard-hitting fireballs. Taako laughed as Barry popped up near him, sputtering after having lost his momentum, causing him to dip under the water. 

 

“What’d I miss?” 

 

“Eh, just Lup being a showoff.” 

 

“Oh shit, everyone else is awake already? Guess I lost track of time.” Barry swam forward a bit, found his footing in the shallow water and slicked his hair back as he stood up. “Well. I’m gonna get outta here before I swallow any more salt water. Um. Thanks for today, Taako.” He turned and started to make his way to the shore. 

 

Taako lifted his hand out of the water to wave, his reaction time incredibly slow as he nearly dozed off on top of his board, lulled by the gently rocking waves. 

 

“Yup. Smell ya later, Barold.”

 

***

 

Barry swam nearly every day once Taako had taught him enough for him to feel confident on his own. He was elated at having learned something new once again. Something that he would have never done if his life hadn’t been extended. It felt amazing. He had been so nervous earlier in the year about being shirtless, and then nervous about swimming and failing, as well as nervous because of a general fear of being in the water. He was beyond happy that he had pushed himself to do those new things and had succeeded at them and had reduced the amount of things that he was nervous about in his life. 

 

Feeling the breeze and the sun on his skin -- it was the  _ best _ . It was energizing and it made him excited as soon as he stepped outside every day. Swimming in the bracingly cold water in the morning when it was already hot outside, but the water hadn’t warmed up yet; it woke up his body and his mind, cleared his head, and filled him with a sense of hopeful anticipation for the day. 

 

Lazily swimming through the softly rolling waves, Barry felt a swelling in his chest, a sudden influx of contentment and happiness from feeling in touch with himself in a way that he couldn’t remember ever having felt. He hadn’t agonized over Lup once during their time there; he just felt so lucky that they were all safe and going to be there together all year it seemed -- as long as Merle didn’t kick it. And, he felt an immense tenderness for Lup’s mere existence. She had seemed very happy, too. He didn’t need anything more than that. 

 

After swimming back to shore and walking to the tree that had become his designated reading spot, still dripping wet, he couldn’t stop thinking about how he would have gone his entire life not feeling what he felt that year. In a strange way, he was sorry for the Barry that had been left behind, the Barry that he used to be. Back on their home world, he had never thought of himself as being miserable, but in comparison to his life then... it felt like he was. Not having close friends, not taking risks, not learning outside of his extremely focused skill set -- not reading under a tree, shirtless on the beach and still wet with seawater, not waving at Lup as she ran down the shoreline. That would be miserable. A miserable, grey, dull life without the sun, without Lup, without the love for himself that he was discovering. 

  
  


_ “I don’t know about love. It’s only been... twenty one years.” _

 

Barry recalled his conversation with Taako, who had been so gentle and sincere with him and ended up reassuring him about something that he tried, and failed, to deny. But, what if it was just love in general that he was feeling? Between loving his friends and learning to love himself, he had a lot more emotional energy than he had probably ever had in his life. And of course, there were more -- complicated feelings with Lup, and of  _ course  _ on top of that, he loved her the same way he loved the rest of them. And she was… incredibly special to him, and he spent large portions of his time either being around her or thinking of being around her. But, he couldn’t,  _ shouldn’t _ be in love with her. It was impossible. Because, if he was in love - in  _ that kind of love _ \-  what would he do? What  _ could  _ he do other than carry that heaviness, swallow those feelings, hold back those words? 

 

But maybe he had already been doing all of that. For a while. 

It was just too hard to admit. 

 

***

 

It was mid-afternoon and Lup was running down the beach near the water so that she could speed along the wet strip of firm sand. She laughed when the waves came in and her feet splashed through the cold water. She had the biggest smile on her face, even through her heavy breathing as she pushed herself to run at her max speed. It was so beautiful and there was no work and everyone else seemed so happy. Everything was perfect. She loved them all and it meant so so much for them to be happy. Even Merle, sick as he was, was incredibly cheerful somehow. 

 

She finished her run, having circled back to the general area of the Starblaster, and she sauntered over to the towel she had spread out for herself earlier. She laid herself down, hands behind her head, feeling satisfied with the exertion in her body. Closing her eyes, she let her mind start to wander. 

She added up the time. From the very end of their seventeenth year to that moment, the middle of their twenty first -- that made it all of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth, and half of the year they were in. A three and a half year long crush, or infatuation, or whatever it was. Fuck. 

_ Maybe  _ if she indulged herself a little bit, got some flirtatious energy out, played around with him like she used to - and made sure to be especially careful looking out for signs of discomfort - maybe she could calm down over the whole thing. She got to know him more and more each year, after all; she would be better at being able to tell how he was feeling. And she could just -- touch him. Just every once in a while. Play around with him again, as a friend, and get to have some closeness to him. He had seemed a little bit more relaxed in the past couple of years. Maybe it would be okay. Or perhaps she could even ask him?  

She may have just been really starved for physical attention, and maybe it was something that could be chased out of her system. Because, if the alternative was to actually,  _ actually  _ get closer to him, or to pursue  _ something  _ with him… and if it didn’t work... that would be extremely irresponsible. It could ruin their friendship; it could ruin the dynamic of their whole group. It was already a miracle that they all got along as well as they did. If there had been anyone who hated someone else on board or if any of them regularly fought, that would be insufferable to deal with. Taako may have been a little standoffish and a bit abrasive at times, but he was never outright mean and never got into fights with anyone or caused uncomfortable situations. Merle could be weird, but it was a welcomed weirdness. Their strange little family was precious, and it just worked somehow.

And if she did make a move at him, well -- he really didn’t seem interested, and it would make things  _ so  _ uncomfortable. If she thought he was awkward about average social interactions, she couldn't even imagine what something like that would cause. And she knew how guilty he would feel if he upset her at all. She wasn’t going to do that to him. She just had to find a way to indulge herself enough without making him uncomfortable or alerting him - or anyone else - to her feelings. 

Gods, what a thing to be thinking about when she was supposed to be relaxing in the shade. She worked on setting her focus back on herself and looked down at her body, admiring all of the small things that she liked about it. Her favorite features were what some might have considered imperfections, but she liked them best because they were unique to her; like a thumbprint. The three prominent stretch marks that ran over the top of her right hip from when she had a growth spurt; they almost looked like scars from claws, and she loved that. Then, there were the random nicks on her ears; collateral damage from back when she was still shaky with her magic. There was the squishiness on her belly that she got a kick out of grabbing and smushing around now and then. And of course, her scarred hands that she was so fond of. 

And then there were her qualities that were typically envied; her burnt sienna skin, her many light, shimmery freckles that resembled flecks of gold and created clouds of constellations all over her body, her intricately braided hair of a radiant white-gold color that gleamed in the sun. But those were traits that other elves, like her brother, also had in varying degrees. She preferred the little details that were hers and hers alone. The marks that showed that she had been living, growing, making mistakes, and gaining power. Those were  _ hers. _

There was that specific part of her past where she had been unhappy with her body, but it felt far away and distant to her. She had had so many years of having what she wanted and feeling love for herself that separated her from those early years before her self-actualization. Back when she longed for her body to match her soul -- she was thankful to have that part of her life far behind her. Thankful that she could lie in the sun and count all the things that she loved about herself. 

She looked up, saw that the sun was overhead and starting to peek through the leaves above her, so she picked up her dramatic pair of oversized, bright red sunglasses off of the towel and put them on, covering most of her face. After a few pulls from a bottle of wine that she had hid in the sand, Lup fell asleep in the shade. 

***

Barry walked to Merle’s room after Lucretia had told him that Merle wanted to see him, and softly knocked on the door. He had a feeling that Merle had finished the gift that he had promised him. After entering the room, he saw that he was right. 

 

“Hey there, Bear! C’mere, I got something for you,” Merle extended a hand holding what looked like a messy pile of small shells. “Had to make it from bed with stuff that ‘cretia found for me. Hope you like it!” 

 

Barry held his hand out under Merle’s, catching the long string of shells. Barry picked it up out of his palm and untangled it before holding it out in front of him by each end. 

 

“It’s a, uh -- necklace?” 

 

“No no no, it’s for your glasses! See, there’s little loops on the ends. You put those around the arms and then you won’t lose your specs.” 

 

“Oh. Yeah, okay, I’ve seen those before. Kind of an old lady thing though, isn’t it?”

 

Merle shrugged. “Old ladies can have good ideas, too.” 

 

Barry chuckled. “Yeah you’re right, I’m being closed-minded. Okay, but uh -- I’m going to be straight with you Merle, this uh -- it smells? Maybe you can’t tell because you’re sick-”

 

“Oh no, I know it does, but I thought it smells like the sea, y’know? It’ll remind you of our time here!” 

 

“Umm, yeah. I don’t really enjoy, uh --  _ that _ smell. The one that is, umm. Coming from... this. But I tell you what, I’m going to keep it and let it air out for a while and whenever the, uhh, aroma wears off, I’ll use it. Yeah?”

 

“Sounds good, bud! Now if you don’t mind, I think I’ve gotta hurl again.” 

 

“Oh, y-yeah, lemme get outta here, uh thanks! For the -- gift.” Barry rushed for the door and made his way out as fast as possible. After he shut the door behind him and tried to make it down the hallway before he had to listen to any more of Merle’s horrible noises, he heard Magnus shout his own name from inside Merle’s room... 

 

“Magnus!” 

 

...followed by the awful noise of Merle all at once yelling in surprise and throwing up into a bucket. 

 

***

 

Davenport strolled far down the beach, far enough to not even be able to see the Starblaster any longer. It felt strange to feel so secure, so safe, so sure that everything and everyone would still be there when he got back. Of course, it still was an alien planet and anything could happen at any time; a violent storm could roll in, some kind of murderous beast could rise out of the sea. Everything could change within a matter of minutes. But, he had a strong feeling that they just wouldn’t; that everything would be fine. Whenever he made his way back from his leisurely, aimless walk, his crew would still be lying around in the sun or running into the water and the ship would still be there, unscathed. He committed himself to taking full advantage of being able to unwind and to meander around with a clear head and no worries. He let his mind wander away from trying to preemptively identify danger and instead noticed the movement of the trees in the wind on the nearby cliff side, the long shadows that the rocks dotting the shore were forming as the sun began to set, and the heavy splashing sounds of the occasional large fish surfacing to devour some floating bit of coastal refuse and then quickly diving back down to the safety of the cold depths. 

 

Davenport returned to the ship before it got fully dark out. Lucretia was sitting on a large, round tapestry under a tree, watching the waves; no notebook, no pencils. She waved enthusiastically as he walked by and he decided to go and talk to his chronicler; talk to her about something that didn’t have to do with fear or recording sterile, emotionally removed plans and strategies. Not that they never had casual conversations, but -- they could  _ actually _ talk at length for once without having a list of tasks looming over their heads or the expectation of something happening at any moment that might require their attention. 

 

Lucretia gestured widely to the little setup she had around her; a wide, flat piece of driftwood propped up on top of a couple rocks, acting as a table for a pitcher of water, a plate of a blackish sweet bread that Taako had made several batches of, a pair of binoculars, and a handful of smooth, pretty rocks that she had collected. 

 

“What do you think?” 

 

Davenport chuckled warmly as he sat down at the end of the tapestry opposite Lucretia. “Have you ever thought about getting into interior design?” 

 

Lucretia’s face softened into thoughtfulness. “You know, I actually think that maybe we could do with some changes on board. Rearrange some stuff, get more decorations and colors in the common areas, instead of everyone only decorating their rooms. It is our home, after all.”

 

“Yeah. It  _ is  _ our home.” Davenport took a sweeping look around them, once again admiring the beauty of their surroundings, making sure to be in the moment as often as possible. “Would you like to take the lead on that?”

 

“On… decorating?”

 

“Yeah. I think we could make an effort to put some of our work towards being able to buy nice things for the common room the next time we’re on a plane with jobs and shops.”

 

Lucretia’s face lit up. “I would love to do that! I think -- I think that would be really great.” 

 

Davenport smiled approvingly. “I think so, too.”

  
  


They heard shuffling coming from behind them and turned to look. Merle waved as he steadily made his way towards them through the sand. 

 

“Feeling better, Merle?” Lucretia shifted and scoot back on the tapestry, making room for him to sit with her and Davenport.

 

“Yeah! I think I finally lost all of the fluid in my body and got it replaced with non-toxic stuff.” 

 

Lucretia grimaced. “Ew.” 

 

“Merle, I’m worried about you not having a healing solution for toxins -- that is not a shortcoming of yours that I was aware of.” Davenport had been trying hard not to bring it up, what with his ban on work and all, but he just couldn’t wrap his head around why their healer would be sick for months, and it was going to keep bugging him if he didn’t say anything. 

 

“Oh, well, it was kind of making me feel too sick to cast anything, so I just rode it out.” 

 

“Uh. Okay, wait… so, you’re telling me this whole time you’ve just been out of commission and couldn’t have healed anyone if needed?” Davenport resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration.

 

Lucretia peered over at Davenport, concern written on her face. He understood her look and shook his head, putting the rising urge to play the role of captain away. 

 

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Not the time for that. We can talk next year.” He exhaled, gathering himself and switching gears. “For now, since you’re feeling better, what do you say to playing some chess by the fire tonight? I don’t think we’ve ever gotten the chance to have a game outside. Could be fun.”

 

Merle smiled, already having put Davenport’s concern out of his mind. “Sounds swell, Cap’n. Lucretia, you wanna play winner?” 

 

“Thank you, Merle, but I think I’m going to get back to my project tonight. I’m getting pretty far along and I’m excited to finish it up.”

 

“Suit yourself! See ya in the morning, then!” Merle stood up along with Davenport  and they made their way away from the water and behind the Starblaster to look for driftwood to start the fire for the night before getting to their game of chess.  

 

***

 

It was growing close to the end of their stay and they were celebrating being together that night with a bonfire and a bounty of food, as they had done many times throughout the year. The crew sat in various spots around the fire, on logs and rocks, talking to each other or just taking in the never ending expanse of dark sky and brilliant glittering stars above them. Lup stood with her feet partially sunken into the still-warm sand, head tilted upward with her eyes on the distant circle of an orange and silver moon, paying close attention to the breeze sweeping in from the water and over her body, giving her goosebumps on her well-tanned arms. She could feel the warmth of the nearby fire at her back and was enjoying the sensation of being embraced by heat and cool wind all at once. She inhaled deeply, slowly, savoring the passage of air into the hollow of her chest. The air there was so clear, so easy to breathe in, even though it was heavy with the humidity and salt of the ocean. Members of the crew were talking just behind her, but their voices were swallowed by the ceaseless waves and their words were washed away in the soft, brushing sound of the water drawing back within itself, pulling in sand and rocks and little creatures and sending them away into the endless body of the sea. 

 

Lup broke out of being nearly hypnotized by the perfection of the night and turned around to face the fire when she heard her name being called by Davenport. He looked excited and she took note of how much his smile had changed; there was a sincerity and vulnerability woven into the warmth of the grin under his mustache which he, for once, hadn’t kept immaculately groomed throughout the year. She walked over to the fire as everyone drew together and crowded around Lucretia. 

 

“Well, as you all know, I’ve been spending a considerable amount of time working on a secret project this year, and um -- I really hope that you all like it. This is… for us.”

 

Lucretia turned the board that she was cradling against herself around and revealed a painting. A skillfully crafted, realistic, gorgeous painting of all of them. All of them, gathered close together, arms hanging over each other. And they were all smiling and radiating love. And they all looked just...  _ so  _ happy. 

 

...

 

As their night together by the fire began to wind down, Lup stared out into the ocean again and was able to see Taako surfing, barely visible aside from the frothing white lines he carved into the water behind him. She tried to resist the urge to go talk to Barry; he had been seeming to have a good time having little one-on-ones with the other members of the crew and Lup didn’t want to monopolize his time as she so often did. But, her self-control lost the fight when she saw from the corner of her eye that he had finished talking with Davenport, who was walking off to replenish his drink, leaving Barry alone near the large rocks a bit away from the fire. She took the opportunity to walk over to him, trying to come up with something to say as she did -- but just as she had almost made it to him, she saw Magnus’s head peeking over the largest of the rocks that was directly behind Barry. Before she could warn him, Magnus sprang out and shouted his own name, something that she hadn’t been able to decide all year whether she found annoying or hilarious, and Barry nearly jumped out of his skin. He was already so easily startled without anyone even having to try to surprise him; Magnus should have known better. As Barry jumped in shock, his glasses went flying off of his face and were about to be dashed on the rocks at his feet. 

 

Lup lunged forward and was able to catch them before they hit the ground. Barry watched as the fuzzy outline of Lup appeared in front of him and moved his glasses towards his face. The gesture was so gentle and intimate as she slipped them over his ears and adjusted them for him, right to the spot on the bridge of his nose where she knew they always sat. After they were on, she leaned back a little and looked over his face, as if to make sure that she had gotten it just right. Lup could see the reflection of the fire in his glasses and hesitated before completely moving away, lying to herself that she was only noticing the fire. And for a palpable moment, five seconds at most, they stood  _ so  _ close to each other, the light of the fire dancing over them, eyes locked, Lup’s hands still in mid-air near either side of Barry’s face, having just let his glasses go. 

 

Somehow, he felt a simultaneous rising and sinking in his body that made it hard to breathe, to think.  _ He was so close to her and it was wonderful. He was so close to her and it was impossible. He was so close to her and he shouldn’t be feeling the way he was. He was so close to her and he was in love.  _

 

He was in love. 

 

And he would never be anything else, ever again. 

 


	22. Reflection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Twenty Two

  
  


After their year on the beach, things changed for the crew. They had more inside jokes with each other, sometimes to the point where they could have full conversations that would make zero sense to anyone outside of their group. They had fun, happy memories to reflect back on; memories that were based solely on positive experiences. For the most part, any small moments of joy that they had been able to catch in their previous years ended up soured by some tragedy that happened immediately before or after. They did have a couple years in the past that didn’t get too bad; but there was always the crackling background noise of fear in everything that they did. Fears that were often confirmed by those cycles where things seemed fine up until everything changed in a split second. Those years where they would suddenly be without multiple members of their family for months; if anything good did happen in the leftover time of those years, there was sorrow in it, a missing space. The beach was the first world where they actually felt safe, felt sure that nothing bad was going to happen. There was almost an emotional connection to the plane, like it was communicating to them in a way, saying that they wouldn’t be harmed, that they could safely rest there. It was their oasis in the middle of wandering through a desert of unknown length. 

 

That year brought them significantly closer and the time they spent with no work and no emergencies solidified the breaking down of professional walls. Twenty years together had done most of the work on that, but it was that time spent together with just themselves and each other that allowed them to all reflect on their years together, their feelings, their trust and love for each other, their comfort, their safety. They knew that they didn’t cling to each other out of necessity or lack of options. They loved each other. They had all grown so close and they were always thankful for each and every day that they woke up and got to see each other. And  _ that _ was why it always hurt so much any time one of them was gone. They were inextricably tied up to each other in their bonds, their love, and the obvious monumentally important fate that they shared. There was no way that they weren’t fated to the lives they were leading. That it hadn’t been fated to be  _ them _ . They weren’t just some lucky people that made it out alive. It was their fate to be together. And they were fated to win, together. They felt and saw that more clearly than ever before after that year, and knew that their bonds with each other were unbreakable.

 

All of those revelations, all of that love brought them close in a way that made them feel infinitely more comfortable around each other in every way. Niceties and pretensions had been shed for the entire year, and it was obvious from then on that there were a lot of things that simply didn’t matter anymore. They were family and the ship was their home. And, that was why Taako found himself talking in the kitchen with Magnus, who was fresh out of the shower with nothing but a towel around his waist, having wandered in at the smell of Taako’s cooking to see if he couldn’t possibly get in on some taste-testing.

 

“Fine, fine. But don’t make this a thing, okay?” Taako hurriedly handed Magnus a ladle full of the soup he was working on and quickly turned back around to tend to the stovetop of multiple sizzling pans and boiling pots. Magnus proceeded to slurp directly from the ladle and Taako turned just in time to catch Magnus with his mouth on it.

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake, I meant for you to put that in a bowl you  _ animal.  _ Now I have to use a new ladle.” 

 

Magnus laughed and shrugged. “I can’t read your mind. You handed me a spoon and food, seemed straightforward to me.” 

 

“UGH. Whatever. Just throw it in the sink when you’re done.” 

 

Magnus hung around in the kitchen, chatting with Taako whenever he had a moment between doing three things at once. As various dishes were finishing up and being plated, they were able to talk a bit more, reflecting once again on their favorite parts of the previous year. 

 

And -- Taako started to notice a pretty distinct pattern in Magnus’s favorite moments. 

 

“... Oh man, and also when Lup totally destroyed that piece of driftwood,  _ that  _ was the best. Oh! And when she made that huge sand castle for the crab that she caught and made a whole backstory for and named him… what was it, something like Snotbag? Fuck, that was fun, she’s so funny. Oh! And then when she-” 

 

Taako’s ears twitched as he cut him off. “ You’re not -- into my sister, are you? Magnus?” 

 

“Oh, no. I’m not,” Magnus’s face looked a little disappointed; he wanted to keep talking, he wanted the conversation to stay light and fun, and he felt bad that he had said something to make Taako feel like it was necessary to ask something like that. 

 

Taako saw how Magnus reacted and was able to read from his face that he was not trying to cover anything up -- there was no surprise or panic. He looked confused, and a little sad. “Ah shit, Magnus, I jumped to a conclusion. That was just like, a straight up marathon of gushing about Lup.” 

 

“She’s a really good friend. You both are! I mean -- everyone, of course. But you two are definitely the most fun.” He grinned, crossing his arms over himself. “Don’t get me wrong, Lup is absolutely amazing. Wouldn’t be surprised if damn near everyone she meets gets a crush on her. But,” his grin softened into a shy smile and he looked off dreamily, “I’ve always had this feeling... this feeling that there’s a specific someone out there for me. And I’ll be bowled over the minute I see them.” 

 

Taako couldn’t help but smile at that. What a big sap. Magnus smiled back, and everything was okay again.

 

“Go get some pants on. Food’s almost done and this isn’t  _ that  _ kind of dinner party.” 

  
  


***

 

Barry was happy, though it was bittersweet. He had gained so much out of the previous year, experienced so many new feelings, learned new things, and felt closer not only to everyone else, but to  _ himself  _ as well. But, it was over. And it wasn’t a place that they could ever return to. 

 

There was still so much happiness to reflect on, though. Moments that had been  _ perfect _ , memories that he was so lucky to have. The feeling of the sun, sand, the ocean breeze and salt water on his skin. The exhilaration of swimming through gently rocking waves in the early mornings. The time he was able to spend with everyone after learning how to swim, his ever-growing closeness to Taako and his — unintentional confession. It was nerve wracking at the time, and he still wasn’t totally sure how to feel about it, but it was still a good moment. He felt cared for and seen by Taako, and having that connection was very important to Barry. 

 

Then there were the  _ best _ parts of the year. The feeling of his feet in the sand while choking on ocean air and shivering despite the warmth because Lup was standing so close to him, illuminated by the fire, burning golden, touched everywhere by the sun. And then… being able to say  _ it  _ to himself. To think it, and to think it so clearly that he could hear the words as if he said them out loud -- he was almost afraid that he would, because those words were all that he was, all that he could embody at that moment. There was nothing else in him, no room for any other thought. Looking at her eyes as they became visible while she put his glasses on… her soft, thoughtful eyes looking closely at him before adjusting his glasses. All he had been able to do was look at her and think I love you I love you I love you. 

 

How could he do anything but love her? Be anything but a person who loved her? Want anything in the world other than to love her? 

 

‘Anything in the world,’ was a strangely funny sentiment to have in their situation. He had loved her in so many worlds. And would love her in however many worlds there were to come. It was just -- such a good feeling. To love. He was so thankful to have that feeling. To be surrounded by it. To feel defined by it.  

 

...

 

The workspace in Barry’s room was covered with a haphazard arrangement of vials and dishes, scattered jars and slides with detailed labels, a rack of test tubes, a microscope, bunsen burner, sieve shaker, and a magnetic stirrer. Barry had a project that he needed to keep a close eye on and check on regular intervals, so it made sense to confine it to the small workspace in his quarters, no matter how cluttered that made it. With all of the equipment set out and prepped, he hurried to get his multiple tests set up to a point where he would only need to check on them every so often. He needed to keep it close, keep an eye on it, and it was possibly something that would be running into the night and maybe even to the early morning. 

 

He had stumbled across a vague idea and naturally went headfirst into running an inordinate amount of tests, and he would keep doing so until he either found something, or exhausted every test and every combination of variables that he could think of. He wanted to see if there was any relationship between the planes that the light chose; the planes where they ended up each year. It couldn’t be  _ entirely  _ random -- maybe there was some connection he could find. He had a cupboard specifically for small boxes of soil and stone samples labeled by year, and he was using those to run his series of tests side-by-side to search for any relationship. He frantically logged everything, even details that seemed obvious or too simple to be anything.  _ Everything  _ got written down. Maybe together, it would all add up to something. Was there some sort of magnetism? Magical energy? A certain element or mineral… he looked at raphides found in the soil to observe on a cellular level how similar the plant life was between worlds. He identified every microscopic metal flake, made new categories and new names for all of the strange, never before seen particles that he inevitably encountered, kept careful notes and described every observable detail. His tests mostly centered around using different compounds and mechanical methods to separate every little thing out from his samples of soil and stone. It required a lot of timing and attention; it meant that he would most likely need to be setting alarms to wake up every hour. He was already tired just thinking about it. He left for the kitchen to grab coffee, and to try and explain to Taako why he  _ really actually needed _ to take his dinner to his room that night. 

 

…

 

“So, you gotta be there to watch shit and turn stuff off and flip shit over, or whatever it is?” Taako held Barry’s plate to the side, intentionally just out of his reach. 

 

“Y-yeah, Taako. I’m sorry, I promise I’ll have the schedule more locked down to regular, further apart intervals tomorrow. It’s just been a process setting it all up.” 

 

Taako swung the plate out in front of him and allowed Barry to take it. “Okay Barold, but if you’re basically sitting there anyways, keep your stone on.” 

 

Barry looked at Taako, confused. “Uh, umm-”

 

“So that we can talk to you, ya doof. Dinner is  _ family time _ , and it’s important in case any of us kick it on any given day. You wouldn’t want my last memory of you for the year to be how you abandoned us during family time _ , would you?”  _

 

Barry nervously chuckled, “Okay, I’ll keep it on. I can do that much. But, can you try not to kick it tomorrow?”

 

“I don’t know  _ Barold _ , I was planning on getting Davenport to take the ship up so that I can try extreme skydiving, see how close I can get to the ground before casting levitate. Then I was gonna get lost in the woods and eat some berries that  _ definitely  _ look poisonous.”

 

Barry laughed. “Yeah. I don’t think you would do that.” 

 

Taako huffed and stuck his nose in the air. “You don’t know me, Barold!” He walked out of the kitchen, carrying two plates with him to the dining room, calling out behind him, “You don’t know me  _ at all! _ ” And then, from even further away he yelled, “I love poison, Barry! You would know that about me if you came to family night!” And then, Barry could faintly hear Magnus yelling, “What’s happening?!”  

 

Barry laughed to himself. He was finally able to consistently tell the difference between joking-Taako and legitimately-annoyed-Taako. He wore a smile as he walked back to his room. He turned his stone of farspeech on to the constant setting and was able to tell that Taako had already done the same as he heard the sound of everyone chatting away at the dinner table come through. 

 

***

 

Barry heard a knock at his door. And then Lup’s voice.

 

“Hey, Barry?”

 

“Uh, y-yeah, come on in.” He jumped to his feet and rubbed at his eyes, trying to feel more awake. Lup’s head popped into view as she partially opened the door and peeked in. 

 

“Missed your face at dinner. Disembodied voices are fun and all, but I like the option to make eye contact, y’know.”

 

“Oh, yeah sorry about that. It’s just all this stuff...” He waved a tired hand at his desk. Lup allowed herself fully into the room, being careful to leave the door at least partially open behind her. She had been constantly worrying about being respectful and aware of his space and comfort.

 

“You’re not pushing yourself too hard, are you? You know you’ve got a pretty cool lab partner that can help you with this sort of thing,” she smirked as she pointed a thumb to her chest. 

 

“Oh, yeah uh, I know. I wasn’t trying to exclude you. It’s nothing but a lot of watching stuff and waiting for things to be done so I can switch em over quick to the next step before the sediments settle too much, and uh-”

 

Lup walked a little further into the room and interrupted him. “So, what were you planning to do tonight? Not sleep?”

 

“No, well -- I was going to set alarms for about every hour to check on things and then sleep in between.” 

 

“Barry, that’s ridiculous.” Lup settled her hands on her hips and gave him a disapproving look. “We’ve got stuff to do tomorrow, and besides, in general I think you have to sleep to live and function and junk.”

 

“I know, I know. I just had some ideas that I thought might lead somewhere and got excited to get into it.” 

 

Lup stepped closer so that they were talking face to face and not halfway across the room from each other. 

 

“Let me help, Barry. Fill me in on what you’ve got going on and what needs to be done. And I can take over for the second half of the night -- you know I don’t need to rest much and I’ll be up in a few hours, anyways. Then you can get some uninterrupted sleep.” Barry sighed and smiled gratefully at Lup and was about to agree to her offer when she leaned forward a bit and set a hand on his shoulder, smiling broadly.

 

“Besides, you know how quiet I am; you can’t tell I’m walking up to you even when you’re  _ awake _ .” 

 

Barry’s face turned bright red as Lup laid her hand on his shoulder while leaning in and speaking to him in her breathy, sly voice. Lup’s eyes grew wide and her smile dropped as she watched Barry’s reaction. She quickly pulled back and covered her face with her hands. 

 

“Uuuuugh, fuck. I’m sorry, Barry.” She dropped her hands to her sides, exasperated with herself. 

 

“I-it’s okay, Lup? U-u-uh. Sorry for...?” Barry stammered nervously, his face still red, and for a moment, Lup saw the face of the Barry from years ago -- from before she realized how uncomfortable she had been making him. Her heart sank. 

 

“I -- I know that you don’t like being touched.” Her voice grew quiet and small. She felt that unfamiliar feeling that she hated so much again. Shame. 

 

Barry didn’t know what to say. Lup was looking at the floor, feeling bad. She had been holding onto a misinterpretation of his reactions to her touch for who knows how long. But what was he supposed to say? No, it’s fine, touch me all you want? That would be weird, and also he’d be back to feeling guilty over the discrepancy of what touch meant for him versus her. But, he wasn’t going to let her think that it wasn’t okay for her to act like herself with him. 

 

“I-it’s okay, Lup. Honestly, please.” Lup looked up and met his eyes as he spoke. “It’s just -- still not something that I’m very used to. Before this, I almost always worked alone. And now, it’s been a long time, years and years, since that was the case, and I-I… wor-- working with you has been one of the best changes in my life. There are things that I guess I’m just still not used to. But, I promise it’s okay. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t be yourself around me.” 

“...are you sure, Barry?”

 

Barry sighed, a little bit relieved. She seemed better. He at least  _ kind of _ said something right. 

 

“I’m sure. There’s -- been a lot of new things to get used to, you know?” He nervously laughed. “And I guess the pace of adjusting is different for some things than others. Or something. I don’t really know.” Barry pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think. “You’re -- really affectionate and warm, Lup. It’s great that you’re like that. I guess I just never really learned how to respond to that sort of thing. And I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it.” 

 

Barry flinched at his words. What was that last part? What did he just say? Why did he say that? That was... way too much. Sad? Probably. Pathetic, kind of. Fishing for some sort of validation -- yeah, it was definitely going to sound like that. Fuck. Lup’s face was so sad, he fucked up, why did he say that, what was she going to think…

 

“Well first off, you don’t need to  _ do _ anything to deserve affection. And second, even if you did, you have definitely earned and deserve warmth and affection, Barry. I’m sorry that your life has been lacking that.” 

 

“I-I’m sorry. That was -- maybe a bit melodramatic.” 

 

Lup smiled and rolled her eyes. “Hey. You’re logical and straightforward and level headed like, all of the time. You can get away with being a little dramatic now and then.” 

 

They softly laughed together, both of them casting their gaze downward. Lup hesitated, and then --

 

“Can I give you a hug?” 

 

“Y-yeah.” 

 

He should have said no. But how could he? He had to say yes. But the part of him that  _ wanted  _ to say yes… that part made him feel bad. 

 

But, he wasn’t able to feel bad for long. She was already wrapping her arms around him and in that moment, that was the only thing that he could feel.

 

***

 

As agreed upon, Lup came back to Barry’s room halfway into the night. Earlier, he had caught her up on where things were, what he had dealt with already, what was almost done and what would be running through the night and into the next day. Afterward, she left to take some time out on the deck, prepared to come back within the next hour, and Barry got ready for sleep. As he dressed down, the reality of the fact that Lup was going to be in and out of his room while he was sleeping settled in. What if he snored? Or talked in his sleep? Oh gods, what if he talked in his sleep and said  _ something that shouldn’t be said. _ There was no way for him to know if he did or didn’t talk in his sleep. What if he did what if --

 

He cut himself off. It was happening, he was going to be fine, she would be in there only for a few minutes every hour to check on their experiments, and it would be  _ fine _ . 

 

…

 

Lup quietly opened the door and made her way inside Barry’s room. She walked as silently as she could over to his work area even though she knew she didn’t have to be that quiet; she remembered from the time when they slept in his tent together that he was basically dead to the world when he was asleep. It was pretty cute. She had frequently shuffled around as she was typically a restless sleeper, and he slept through it all with his arm limply slung over her. 

 

She sat down at the desk and started to look over the running experiments. She checked on what solutions were done separating individual components from the samples and then started setting up the sieve shaker with a new sample of unprocessed sediment for separating. Her work in the lab had started to become smooth and automatic, like Barry when he was working. It was a satisfying feeling finding a rhythm in labeling, note taking, setting up and tearing down and cleaning and setting up equipment again. 

 

While looking over her work to make sure that she had gotten everything, she heard soft snoring coming from behind her. She turned to look at Barry. He was really out of it. Poor guy was so tired. She was glad that she caught him and was able to help him get some rest before he just decided to stay up all night. He looked so peaceful and comfortable covered in blankets, his arm flopped over a second pillow in his bed, almost cuddling it. He was  _ so  _ fucking cuddleable looking. She wished she could slip in and take the pillow’s place. Gods. She had only just earlier that night established that it was okay to hug him, and there she was, already wanting to crawl into bed with him while he was sleeping like an absolute creep. Was she really  _ that  _ determined to push boundaries with him? 

 

She had already spent a little over twenty minutes on work -- if she was going to be checking in every hour, it seemed a bit pointless to leave for half an hour and come back. It wouldn’t hurt to stay with the experiments anyways; in fact, it would probably be good to supervise them and make sure that she got everything right since she had to reset about half of them. It made sense to stay there. Stay and listen to the mechanical hum of the lab equipment and Barry’s rhythmic snoring. 

 

***

 

The forest was already creepy enough with its pitch black trees that seemed to absorb and destroy all light around them. It was impossibly dark even after stepping only a few feet in, and when they had flown over it, the sight was hard for them to process; there was sort of a cloud of -- absence all around the treetops. But, on top of all that, there were some sort of creatures running around through the woods. They hadn’t got a good look at them since they only came to the edge of the forest enough for them to see a very brief flash of them before they ran off. All they could tell was that they were pale to the point of almost glowing, sort of humanoid, and hunched over. 

Several months in, the creatures in the black woods started to get more daring, coming closer to the edges of the forest, and staying still rather than quickly dipping in and out of the darkness. When they were working outside, the crew could sometimes make out the blank faces of the creatures as they were quietly watched by them.

...

Barry, Taako and Merle set out into the woods, looking for anything edible or able to be used for Merle’s healing purposes or things that might have any scientific value for Barry. Even with light spells, Barry could barely see more than a couple of inches in front of his face. He relied heavily on Taako leading him and showing him or describing to him any things of interest in their surroundings. The woods were fairly sparse though, and they didn’t find much in the way of other plants aside from some sickly, curled black ferns, plush patches of black moss, and a variety of small, dark sproutlings scattered about the forest floor. Barry did make sure to grab some of the pitch black leaves and twigs, though; if nothing else, maybe they could be synthesized into pigment. 

As they made their way through the black woods, Taako and Merle saw something moving through the trees -- something taller, slower, and more colorful than the little humanoid figures occasionally scurrying about. Moments later, Merle noticed someone approaching him from the side. 

 

“Magnus? What are you doing out here?” 

 

The large figure of Magnus said nothing. It lurched forward, one foot stepping limpy in front of the other, looking like they were being pulled forward with strings. It seemed to scan over them, but its eyes were lifeless and still. As Taako and Merle stared back, prepared to fight, the thing that appeared to be Magnus finished looking them over and started to walk away. 

 

“Sooo. We can’t just let that go, right? Gotta follow it?” Merle crossed his arms and nervously tapped his foot against the ground. 

 

“W-what was that? I can’t see shit.” 

 

“Well, dear Barold, that was our friend Magnus, except I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.” Taako put an arm around Barry’s shoulders to guide him along in the direction that the Magnus-like-thing had gone. “Let’s go see what the fuck is up with that whole situation.” 

 

***

Lup sat in a lounge chair on the deck of the Starblaster, cautiously eyeing the forest and wondering how safe they really were. The entire planet was covered in the unforgivably thick forest with very few small patches of ground big enough to land in; there wasn’t anywhere on the planet where they wouldn’t be right up against the forest. And the forest made Lup uneasy. It made  _ all _ of them uneasy.

She saw a pale white, featureless face looking up at her from the edge of the woods. She didn’t take it as a good sign that the creatures were becoming more curious about them; even though they hadn’t shown any hostility yet, she felt pretty confident that if they had any intentions, they were probably not good.

As she was squinting her eyes and staring back at the face, thinking that she could almost maybe see some outline of faint features on it, she heard her stone crackle and Merle’s frantic and breathless voice coming through. 

“Running back… there are  _ copies _ … of us, don’t… go out, stay in the ship… fuckers are  _ fast... _ ” 

Lup jumped out of her chair, flooded with adrenaline. But before she could run anywhere, do  _ anything _ , she saw the face in the woods again. And watched as it started to form features. Slowly, at first. Then it rapidly filled in the rest of the way and was washed over with detail and color like a paint bucket had been overturned above it. 

And it stepped out of the woods. And was Lup.

Her spine straightened, her blood ran cold and her heart jumped so hard that she could hear the echo of it in her ears.

She saw Merle emerge from the woods, running and yelling. And there was another Merle behind him, its movement unnatural, sickening, its eyes wide open and unblinking. Her hands set fire, ready to blast the thing behind him, but it was  _ so close _ to Merle. Fuck it. Better a slightly singed and crispy Merle than no Merle at all. She shot a violent burst of flame at the thing chasing Merle, but the fire only washed over it. 

And she could only watch as it shot both of its arms forward, into Merle’s back, and then she saw its hands violently emerge from the front of his chest as the copy effortlessly destroyed him by ramming its hands  _ through  _ him and  _ out the other side.  _ Lup gagged at the sight of forcefully flung viscera, at seeing her friend stop moving and falling over onto his face. At seeing his face again, standing over his body, but looking  _ wrong.  _

She ran into the Starblaster, shaking with confusion and anger, not knowing what to think or do or feel, just yelling, yelling for everyone. Magnus, Lucretia, and Davenport were already gathered near the window by the door, holding on to each other, helpless. They opened their circle of arms to her as she threw herself into them, trembling and failing to find words.

And they could only watch from the window as more of them came from all directions out of the woods. First two Barrys came from opposite sides of the clearing, then a Taako. None of them  _ their _ Taako or Barry. The two Barrys met in the middle of the clearing and went at each other, one being a little bit faster and destroying the other in the same fashion as Merle had been killed, except the explosion of gore from the attacked copy was glowing white -- just as their whole bodies had been before they took on their appearances. The Barry and the Taako and the Merle copies paced around the clearing, seeming entirely uninterested with each other.  

Then, they saw the Lup copy, sprinting from the edge of the clearing where Lup had watched as it transformed into her. It made it to the side of the ship and threw itself full force against it and started uncontrollably screaming and scratching at the ship wall. It knew that Lup was in there. 

...

The whole thing started scattered and chaotic, until it gained a momentum and the process fell naturally into an organized state. There was a string of them leading from near the ship ramp into the woods, walking into each other and rhythmically destroying the copy closest to them, stepping forward onto the last corpse and followed by another that would kill the one in front of it. More and more blanks came from out of the woods, looked over the living ones and copied them and either killed or were killed, until there was finally only one Barry, one Taako, one Merle standing among the piles of corpses, and no more creatures came to copy them. And then, there was the one Lup, screaming with the voice of a panicked animal, wanting into the ship. 

…

Davenport flew them out, even though spaces to land were far and few between. They couldn’t stay there. 

Lup stared out the window as the ship lifted into the air. Looking down at the bodies of her loved ones.There were so many of them. Like they meant nothing. Like there was nothing special or different about them. 

And what if there wasn’t? There were infinite planes that they would never see, no matter how long they did what they were doing. And there were probably infinite slightly different  _ thems.  _

__

Actually, fuck that. No matter how close, how similar, there was only one IPRE crew, and they were without a doubt the only ones doing what they were doing. And they were going to save _everything_ _and_ _everyone_ _someday._ Even the bullshit that fucked with them like the fuckers on that plane. 

 

****

  
  


Lup continued to run Barry’s experiments. Being in his room was torture. 

She resisted the strong urge to curl up in his bed… for a couple of days. She was just feeling so tired. There couldn’t be any harm in taking one nap there. And she’d be close to their work, so it made sense. That’s all it was. A sensible decision.

She kept justifying it to herself as she started to drift in and out. He wouldn’t mind, they’d slept next to each other before, after all. And he was so nice and so understanding and they already shared close spaces together all the time and… 

 

What was she supposed to do. What was she supposed to  _ do _ . She had the rest of her family there with her still. She felt guilty about not being able to fully accept the condolences and care from the others. But she couldn’t help how she felt. And she couldn’t sleep in the room she shared with Taako. And she couldn’t sleep on the side of the couch where she had fallen asleep on Barry’s shoulder; the spot that had unofficially become  _ their  _ spot, the space on the couch where they almost always inevitably ended up any time that they were in the room together.

 

 

So, she fell asleep in Barry’s bed. But, only for that night.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She wondered if she could sleep for the rest of the year. 


	23. Storm Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Twenty Three

Barry was lying far to one side of his bed, his eyes wide, looking up at the ceiling. On the opposite side of the bed from him, on the pillow, there were a few stray strands of hair that were definitely Lup’s. He didn’t know why -- well,  _ why _ was because she had been in his bed, obviously. But he didn’t know why she had been there. It must have been for the experiments they were running. She was so diligent and thorough with her work, and he knew that she had taken over for him after his death. She just got tired while keeping an eye on them. But, there was some part of him that wondered if there was any other reason. She hadn’t mentioned it, and that seemed like something that she would do -- say something about the fact that she had been in his space a little more than usual, ask if that had been okay. It felt like something was hidden. He hadn’t had the chance to talk to her very much yet, though. 

 

After their regeneration and everyone welcoming the previously dead crew members back, Lup left with Taako for time together as they always did after one of them died. But the way she had looked at Barry as she left the room -- he could not parse what that look meant. All at once disappointed and relieved, almost? It was a sort of weak smile, followed by her quickly avoiding eye contact and rushing off with Taako. Maybe there wasn’t anything to read into there -- she was probably feeling a  _ lot _ . He had seen before how hard it was on her to lose her brother. She had seemed much better at dinner, sitting by Taako, joking and laughing. And on the way to his room that night, she caught him in the hall and hugged him and welcomed him back, again. Then, she almost sprang away from him and walked off, saying as she left -- 

 

“Oh, and I took care of your experiments while you were gone, nerd.” She looked back over her shoulder at him and smiled, then disappeared into the common room. 

 

It had actually been a while since she had called him a nerd. He didn’t mind that sort of thing anymore; he found her teasing cute. But it made him wonder if she was trying to put some distance between them. Maybe she was more upset than she was letting on about him dying. Or maybe, he had failed her by not protecting Taako…

  
  


He really wanted to get back into the lab with her -- it had been a couple years since they had spent much time there together and he missed it. Missed the one on one time with her. Missed working with her and especially teaching her new things. The attention she gave him, the laser focus she had; teaching her gave him more satisfaction than he had had in his entire career on their home world. He felt so special getting to share knowledge with someone like her, to be listened to and seen by someone like her. And when she complimented his knowledge, or gods, those couple of times years and years before when she had complimented his  _ voice _ as she sat there, listening to him talk -- he died. 

 

He just… missed her. For him, he hadn’t been gone for months -- he was seeing her and talking to her every day before he was simply gone, to him only for a split second. But, he still felt an emptiness. Maybe it was the way she had looked at him that gave him that feeling, that made the time that he had been gone real and tangible to him. 

 

***

 

They were on a world with actual cities again, finally. The whole crew was excited; to explore, to partake in the local fun, even to find work so they could start the slow process of scraping together some local currency in order to stock up on supplies. Supplies that weren’t from foraging,  _ finally _ . They were going to be able to get more booze, more potions, food and spices that were already processed and ready to be used, clothes, journals, tools. And they had people to interact with, to talk to and learn from, to gather and share stories with. 

 

Though of course, getting to know new people was paired with the knowledge that they would be leaving them soon.  

  
  


Lup found a library that was devoted solely to schools of magic. She threw herself into looking for anything new to learn that she could find, anything unique to that plane that she could glean from and turn into a way to improve her craft. She ended up being approached by a librarian and offered a job there. They were short-staffed and had seen how knowledgeable Lup was on a variety of the subjects that they specialized in there, and knew that they could use her help. She was ecstatic to have found a job without even looking, and one that was going to be fun and useful to her. 

 

…

 

Lup ran into the lab, up behind Barry, skidding at the last second and gracefully falling into her chair.

 

“Hah! That was cool.”

 

“Yeah, I know.” Lup playfully flipped her hair and grinned. “Anyways, check it out -- guess who just got a job at the library?” She pointed two thumbs at herself and gave Barry an excited, open mouth smile. 

 

“Oh nice, congrats!” Barry impulsively put a hand up to give her a high-five -- a move that confused him because he’d never offered one before, but she immediately returned the gesture with a hard slap against his palm without question. 

 

“And! They still need more people over there. Sooo, I told them that I might know a guy…” Lup arched her eyebrows and wiggled them dramatically at Barry. 

 

“Oh! Really?” 

 

“Yeah! Wanna be co-workers, Bear? I know that’s new territory for us and all,” she smirked. 

 

“U-uh, yeah! That sounds great. Um… what do I do now? Or, when do I go -- there?” 

 

“You can come with me now! I’ll introduce you.” Lup jumped up and grabbed Barry’s hand, practically pulling him out of his chair to follow her. 

 

*******

 

Barry went to the kitchen, looking for Lup. He found Taako instead, hurriedly rummaging through drawers. 

“Hey, uh -- do you know where Lup is? I wanted to ask her something about these books we brought home.” 

“Yeah, she’s in our room. We’re in the middle of something but we can def take the convo over there.” 

“Are you sure? I don’t want to interrupt…”

“It’s all good, Bear. It’s not a big deal.” 

After Taako had gathered several small boxes of matches, he led Barry to their room. As the door was opened, Barry’s vision was greeted by a flurry of moving bits of color. Lup was sitting on the floor, a burnt-looking cone of cardboard in her hand, laughing hysterically, her hair full of colorful scraps of paper. She looked up and saw Barry at the door and beamed. Barry didn’t know how to respond.

“Uh. H-hey, so, uh -- wait, why is there confetti everywhere?” 

“Like I told you, Barold, we were in the middle of something. Anyways, there’s Lup, so talk about your thing or whatever.” Taako waved a dismissive hand between Barry and his sister and walked into the room, plopping himself down on the floor where he started scooping together a pile of confetti. 

“What’s up, Barry?” 

He could barely keep himself from telling her how damn cute she was, sitting cross-legged on the floor, hair messy, covered in scraps of multicolored paper. He could feel his face turning red. He coughed, trying to get the words unstuck from his throat, to shake the thought out of his head. 

“So, uh yeah. Not much really, just wanted to see which of the books that we got you wanted to start on first. I was going to get into reading in a minute and -- yeah, it’s not important, just wanted to see which one you wanted first so I could take the other one and-”

“Yeah, sure Barry. Lemme go with you to check them out again, see which one calls to me.” She stood up, handfuls of confetti falling off of her as she did. Taako continued to scoop up confetti and was packing it into another cardboard tube. 

“What is it that you’re uh, doing -- with this?”

Taako spoke without looking up, “You know your guy here can like, conjure confetti out of nothing with prestidigitation and whatnot, but the rest of you poor saps can’t do cool shit like that. So, we’re making some party favors for everyone. Thought we could make a big ass deal out of partying down tomorrow night.”

“Oh! That’s pretty cool. You know… I have stuff that could probably make this a bit easier, and uh -- bigger.”

“Aww shit, Barold. You saying you got some explosives you can hook us up with?” Both Taako and Lup’s faces lit up.

“I mean… for a small amount of propulsion, definitely plenty enough for confetti. We just need to put them in some fire proof chambers and then use something that when activated, will fill them with enough pressure to-“

From his spot on the floor, Taako excitedly raised his hand like he was in class. “Professor Barold,  _ could  _ you make sparks come out of them?”

“Heh, I mean that would be a hell of a fire hazard, mixing flying bits of paper and sparks. Wait… unless we make the confetti out of something  _ else  _ \-- something non-flammable.” 

Barry got the look on his face that Lup knew was his thinking face, the one that always had her on the edge of her seat whenever she saw it. Taako was wiggling with excitement and jumped up. While Barry was lost in thought, the twins grabbed an arm from each side and started to lead him out of the room. 

“This is gonna be some cool shit, Bear, let’s do this!” 

***

 

Barry was reshelving books when he felt something fall on top of his head. He rubbed at his hair and several small pieces of paper rained down. He looked up at the open ledge of the second story above him and heard the sound of a snort-giggle and caught just a brief glimpse of Lup’s hair as she ran off. He looked around, trying to find a way to retaliate. Before he could find anything, he heard her coming down the stairs -- so he ran down the aisle away from the stairs, turned the corner, and did his best to quietly move fast three rows over where he knew there was another book cart sitting, unattended. He ducked down behind it so that he wouldn’t be visible from the end of the aisle closest to the stairs -- he’d just have to hope that she wouldn’t think to walk down and start looking from the other side. 

 

He had a goofy smile on his face that he couldn’t hide. He  _ loved _ doing dorky stuff with Lup. He thought about how ridiculous he probably looked; a man of his age awkwardly hiding behind a book cart, trying his hardest not to laugh and give himself away. And he didn’t care at all. In fact, it made him happy that he probably looked ridiculous. 

 

As he crouched down, he peered through the books on the shelves next to him, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of Lup walking by. He heard steps coming from behind him -- and then laughter. Laughter that wasn’t Lup’s.

 

Barry turned his head to see the head librarian, the person who had  _ hired  _ him, standing at the end of the row. 

 

“Having fun?” 

 

Barry’s face was on fire as he jumped to his feet, trying to find anything to say. 

 

“U-u-uh, was just uh, I-I-I --”

 

The librarian cut him off. “I was only coming to see if you were done re-shelving the books. I had some research projects needing to be started on. But, I see that you’re busy. Come find me when you’re… done with this.” 

 

The librarian, who had laughed a bit at first, sobered up and was serious in a way that made Barry’s breath stop. And then they walked off. Barry pinched the bridge of nose and sighed heavily, searching for his breath. A few moments after the librarian left and just as Barry started to fully spiral into deep mortification, he heard snickering -- then heavy, gasping chuckling muffled by a hand from the other side of the shelf next to him. He looked through the books and found Lup’s eyes. She had both hands over her mouth, her face red from trying not to laugh so loudly that it would echo through the whole library. Barry narrowed his eyebrows and faked looking angry at her as tears started to fall down her face. She walked the rest of the way down the aisle and turned down Barry’s row. She was breathing very slowly and intentionally, desperately trying to stop laughing. She jogged over to Barry and wrapped him in a hug. 

 

“Ohhh my GODS, Barry, you poor thing.” She gripped onto him as she pushed her face into his shoulder to muffle another wave of laughter. After letting go and wiping the tears from her eyes, she found her voice again. 

 

“I am  _ so  _ sorry for laughing, I know how bad that was for you, but shit, that was fucking funny.” 

 

Barry forced a smile, his face still burning. “That’s okay. It  _ was  _ funny. I mean, not for me, but if I was watching that happen, yeah, it would’ve been hilarious. But, I’m -- uuugh, I feel so awful, Lup. I’ve never… even been in a position where I could get in ‘trouble’. That was -- the worst.” 

 

Lup put a hand on Barry’s shoulder. “It really doesn’t matter, Bear. It’s not like we’re going to be working here for forever.” 

 

“That’s true. Depressing, but true.” 

 

“And that’s life for ya!” Lup turned away from Barry and skipped back to her work, looking back to wave at him before she disappeared around the corner. 

  
  


***

Lucretia offered to be the one to stay behind on the ship; when Magnus tried to say that he would be willing to, she insisted that she was tired and not feeling up to going out anyways. So, they reluctantly left her behind. One of the things that they missed the most from the beach year was being able to all go out at once; that was not a risk that they had been willing to take on any other plane. Always having to split up except for when they were in the ship was the worst. 

Lup and Taako had asked around throughout the week to find out what were the most popular places for nightlife in the city, and they were overwhelmingly pointed to a club called The Shade. 

The outside was almost too much to look at; there were screens, two stories tall, with quick moving images displayed on them, neon geometric shapes that melted into three dimensional drops of liquid, to sparkling stars with silhouettes of people moving in smooth, rhythmic and complicated dance moves. And the people there -- there were races resembling elves, dwarves, humans, orcs, gnomes, halflings -- every race that they were used to back from their home world, and more. But they were all more… ‘sleek’ might have been the only way to define it. They were colorful, but lacking texture; almost like they were poreless, plastic. Everyone moved like fluid with each motion, like they were dancing any time that they stepped or turned, even in their everyday interactions. So, when they went inside and saw what the people of that plane looked like when they were  _ actually  _ dancing -- it was a little intimidating. 

But that didn’t stop any of them. Especially not with their dozens of sparkling confetti cannons that they used as currency to skip ahead in line at the bar.

...

There were screens  _ everywhere _ inside the club. The locals seemed to be used to it, but it gave the crew headaches and they tried to keep their eyes away from them. They displayed a plethora of colorful messages and listed upcoming events at the club and elsewhere in the city. There were several mentions of storms and ads about a party happening before the storms, something about the ‘last dance of the year’. Sitting at the counter, waiting for his elaborately crafted and decorated cocktail to be finished, Merle asked the bartender what all the mentions of the storms meant, which got him a strange look. 

“Storm season coming up. Everyone’s going t’be staying inside for a while, so they get the partying of the way ‘fore it starts.” 

“Oh! They’re that bad?” 

The bartender handed Merle his tall, sparkling blue drink with a bundle of silver curled strings spilling over the side and a pink straw that glowed neon in the dim club lighting. 

“Y’they are. Impossible t’go outside.There are tunnels under the city so people can make it t’work or the store. B’mostly people stay in their homes, relaxin’. Tryin’ t’stay calm so the nights don’t get too bad.” 

Merle kept the straw in the corner of his mouth as he spoke. 

“Bad nights?” 

“Wow, y’sure don’t know shit, huh? Look, ask someone else, I’ve got t’tend bar.” 

***

 

On their way home, they took in the sights of the city. Looking at the tall screens that lined the buildings, they noticed that there were a lot of advertisements for sleep medication popping up. More often than any of the other products or events vying for their attention on the colorful screens. 

 

Davenport had let himself get a little tipsy -- much more than usual for him. He pondered the messages on the screens and slurred, “Maybe that’s something we should look into… tomorrow.” 

 

The crew agreed, not feeling much concern, their arms wrapped around each other as they moved down the sidewalks as a single entity. 

  
  


But, tomorrow ended up being too late. 

  
  
  
  


**The Storm**

  
  
  
  
  


Lup woke up gasping and trembling. She sat up straight and looked around the room, confused. As she settled down and realized where she was, who she was, that there was no danger, that she wasn’t completely undone and dissipated into the void, she drew her knees to her chest and started sobbing. 

 

Taako had already left their room and was most likely cooking breakfast. She couldn’t stop the tears and she wished he was there to hold her. She grabbed at blankets and pillows to surround herself with and cuddle in her arms while she waited for her breathing to even out. 

 

Once she was able to breathe and had stopped shaking, she dug around in her dresser drawer and grabbed a notebook. She felt compelled to write down the entire dream. It was still in her mind with such perfect clarity and vivid detail, unlike any other dream she had ever had. She didn’t want it to slip away. It seemed -- important. 

 

...

 

_ I was sitting in a cafe with a man. I had the feeling that I had known him forever. But then I looked at the face across the table from me and I couldn’t recognize it. Features were fuzzy and I felt like I wasn’t actually looking at a face. I kept insisting that I didn’t recognize him and I didn’t know who he was and he looked more and more sad as I spoke, but he wouldn’t say anything. He got up and left and the feeling of watching him go ripped my heart out. It was like watching someone walk to their death, but being immobile and unable to stop them. And then I had the feeling of all the love in myself, everything that was possible for me to feel I felt it spilling out and pooling on the floor and I knew that I wouldn’t, couldn’t heal. Not from this.  _

 

_ I watched him leave and even though I was insisting the whole time that I didn’t know him, I felt everything in me leave with him. Then I was sitting at a table, empty. Other people came and talked to me about nonsensical things. Your standard dream stuff. There was a mood shift and everything turned sort of ordinary and boring. I started mentioning him to people, and it didn’t rip my heart open to think about him anymore. Eventually, people didn’t know who I was talking about and then I started to say that I didn’t know, either. _

 

_ After that, I wandered through the streets. It felt like hours that I was in the darkness with no one else around. I wasn’t trying to go anywhere, wasn’t doing anything. Then, everything went black, and a moment later I was sitting on the edge of a cliff. There was water below that was an impossibly clear blue. The sun was setting behind tall, ancient pines in the distance. And then he came out of nowhere and sat down next to me. It felt like a very peaceful and familiar happiness when he arrived, and we didn’t have to say anything to each other. He picked up my hand and held it while looking at me, and this time I could see his face. But, I turned my head away for some reason and looked at the clear blue water and the tall pines, instead. I felt him moving my hand to his chest and pressing, and I was still looking at the clear blue water and the tall pines. He kept pressing my hand to his chest and it was sinking into the softness of his body, but I wouldn’t stop looking at the pines. And he kept pressing, and my hand was sinking further, but I was still taking in the clear blue water and felt calm, and he was pressing my hand so hard into his chest that something gave way and I could feel my hand slowly entering into what felt like warm air, like lightness, like softness... not just softness, but the idea, the concept of softness.  _

 

_ I could feel him looking at me, but I was still looking at the setting sun and the tall pines and the clear blue water while my hand sank into the eternity of his being. The sun set and everything was impossibly dark and I felt a dizzying, tingling wave of cold and sudden lightness wash over me. And then, an extended moment of nothingness. A moment that felt like forever. And I was terrified of it. I felt like I was nothing but a buzzing sensation. No body, no thoughts except for pure panic at the feeling of coming undone; I had to get away immediately. I woke up with my heart pounding. _

 

_... _

  
  


Lup finished writing, satisfied that she had gotten down most of the details she could remember before the dream disappeared from her memory completely. 

 

Throughout the day, bits of the dream would crop up and make her feel strangely emotional and sort of hazy, as if she were still dreaming. Seeing or feeling something familiar from the dream was disorienting. She felt especially strange around Barry and wanted to avoid him, but at the same time, she didn’t want to let him out of her sight. He was oddly quiet around her, which she was okay with. She wouldn’t know how to say anything normal if they did get into a conversation.

  
  


***

  
  


Barry woke up, frantic, looking around the room for Lup. It took about thirty seconds to realize where he was and where she most likely was and that things were okay and she wasn’t lost. But, he was still shocked by the absence of what he had just been feeling before he woke, and the loss he felt was so deep that there were tears in his eyes.

  
  


He stumbled to his desk and grabbed a notebook. He needed to get it out, get it out of his head, write it down, put it away so that it would hopefully not stay with him all day. 

 

**…**

 

_ I couldn’t find her anywhere, and no one knew who I was talking about. People started to worry for me and tried to stop me from searching; they thought I was losing it. They were saying it was because I kept myself so alone and locked away doing work that I ended up imagining this person, this close friend, this... love… as a way of dealing with some sort of breakdown. And all I could feel was an emptiness in me so vast and overwhelming that I was almost falling over at every step, and it kept me from running to the places I thought she might be.  _

 

_ I kept having false memories of her telling me about some cafe that she always loved to go to, or a tree that she would sit under to write, or a trail by a creek that she frequented. It would take me forever to get to each of these places, and I wouldn’t realize until I was there that she had never said anything about that place and that I had made a mistake, that I had listened to her wrong, and that realization filled me with shame and regret… why hadn’t I listened to her? She was gone and I couldn’t find her because I never listened; I was too buried inside my own head. My panic worsened at each failed location, and the anger I felt at myself bubbled up until I wanted to yell, to scream everything that was in me out of me. Instead, I would start moving frustratingly slowly to the next place, feeling sure  _ _ that _ _ would be the one.  _

 

_ Nothing ever worked, and the cycle of panic and anger devolved into a despair that made me move even slower. It felt like I was sinking into the ground, losing the ability to move my knees. I tried to move until every inch of my body felt broken, and I finally gave up. I heard myself saying that I deserved whatever pain was coming, and I accepted that thought as logical and true. I started wandering slowly, without purpose and with a blank mind.  _

 

_ Then, I came to a ladder that was up against a featureless, gray wall of solid stone. I somehow found the energy to climb it. At the top, the grayness gave way to beautiful scenery. And I saw someone with their back to me, sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking a body of water, the silhouette of the person lit around the edges by the setting sun in front of them. I walked over, suddenly able to move normally, and I calmly sat down next to them. It was Lup and I was taking Lup’s hand and everything was slow and peaceful and unhurried. And I closed my eyes and after a moment, it felt like the ground under me dropped away, and I felt myself deflate and I was everywhere that Lup was and wasn’t. And then I woke up. And I had never felt such a deep sense of loss.  _

 

_... _

  
  


Everyone congregated in the common room that morning, as per usual. They all seemed -- off. But leave it to Merle to just blurt things out. 

 

“Anyone have some weird dreams last night?” Everyone looked over at him nervously, as if they had been accused of something. 

 

“Yes, in fact, I did Merle.” Lucretia spoke with her usual air of quiet calm. Looking around the room, Magnus and Davenport sort of half-nodded. Barry blushed and looked away from everyone, not wanting his eyes to be seen. Lup tried to seem like she was looking at the floor and not at Barry from the corner of her eye, and Taako idly traced circles with his forefinger on the surface of the couch cushion next to him. 

 

“Mine was kinda dope, actually,” Taako chimed in. “Got married on top of a skyscraper.” 

 

Lup was temporarily shaken out of her hypnotic state. “You fucking hate heights. And commitment.”

 

“Maybe so. Still sounds cool on paper.” Taako started to look over his nails, not making eye contact with anyone. “Might not be crazy about the institution of marriage, but still very into the wedding aesthetic. Or, at least how  _ mine  _ would be. And, y’know… good food and stuff…” his aloof tone tapered off and he sighed deeply, unable to keep up the appearance of being wholly unaffected. 

 

Lup could tell that there was a lot more to it than he was letting on, but he would tell her about that later. If he wanted to. Considering the emotional intensity of her dream, and the fact that it was centered around a certain crewmate, she was unsure whether or not she would tell him later. She told him everything, but that… it was little too weird.

 

“It was just a lot of -- bad things happening. With the ship. And everyone,” Davenport said, his voice fragmented and distant. 

 

Magnus was silent, but looked about ready to cry. He was staring at the floor obviously replaying whatever it was that had happened in his dream to himself.

 

***

 

After a couple weeks of the relentless storm outside and dreams every single night, Lup started to feel constantly irritated. She hadn’t been able to meditate; any level of lucidity left her feeling angry. Angry at the constant sound of rain and wind, angry from being tired, angry from everything that was fucked about their lives crashing down on her at once. She was wallowing, and it wasn’t like her. 

 

When she did try to sleep, the dreams happened in short bursts, all night. Over and over. She’d wake from one and then not be able to keep her eyes open because of the deep, bone aching exhaustion. And then there’d be another one. And she wanted to scream. She wanted to sleep, but she couldn’t, so she wanted to scream and tear everything up around her.

 

There was an upsetting theme in her nightmares. A man with a distorted voice and facial features that kept changing throughout the dream. A man whose image was hard to grasp, who never looked the same for long, but who was definitely the same person. It was just something she knew, that made sense. It was always the same person. When he sat next to her or she saw him walking, she would realize that it was him, and the plot of the dream would start. Some heart-aching, stressful short story where she would say something wrong and then she’d suddenly be unable to find him, and all she could do was look, look and look everywhere, the fear of never seeing him again heightening into terror as the knowledge grew from within that something unfixable had happened, something awful had happened to him. 

 

Or, she would see him die, and it would always be her fault. 

She convinced him to climb a street light with her and he fell off, landing onto an iron fence topped with decorative spikes. 

She stood with him by the ocean, and she fought with him and then walked away, leaving him there by the waves. And then the water started to pull back from the shore, far, far, much too far, exposing gnarled, disgusting creatures clinging to oozing stones, and then the wall of water came  crashing down on him and she was just far enough away to be safe, to be helpless, to only watch as he was taken by the water. 

  
  


But finally, there was one where she was holding his hand for the entirety of the dream, and it was a more peaceful feeling than she had ever felt. She walked with him, happy to be touching him but also happy in knowing that if she just kept holding on to his hand, he’d be safe. 

 

It was her first moment of peace in so long. Waking up from the dream made her cry. But then she slowed her breathing and willed herself back to sleep. And she was able to see the man again. She was able to keep him from dying, was able to spend time with him, and being in his presence felt safe, calm. And even though his appearance and voice were in a state of constant flux, she knew who it was. 

She knew who that man in her dreams was supposed to represent. 

 

She woke, and was done trying to sleep. There was a lingering need for the feeling that she had in her dreams. It felt like she had lost something essential to her existence. 

 

Lup cursed the rain for probably the hundredth time that week. She wished that she could walk out to the deck and stargaze. And to wonder with heavy anticipation if Barry might show up. 

 

Not being able to do that was incredibly difficult to deal with. It was a need. It was just part of what she did. 

 

It used to be only her and the stars. But then, it was her and the stars and Barry. And it was so much better that way. She wanted it that way. Needed it that way. 

Because

 

She loved him.  _ Loved  _ him. She had tried to minimize it. To think of it as a crush. Something temporary, something that could be kept quiet, caged up in her heart. Something that was exciting and fun and that could be worked through with some touching and flirting and more time spent with him. Something that could have the energy burned out of it. But it was aching terribly and was almost a physical pain sometimes. Because it was love.  _ Because it was love.  _

 

It had been difficult to identify. She still could barely believe it. Because it wasn’t something that she had felt before. Romantic love wasn’t something that had ever been a focal point in her life, was never something that she chased after. Love for her brother, love for friends, loving herself -- that felt like enough. And those were still important, always would be important. But, there was something new growing within the hollow of her chest, out of control, like thorny vines wrapping themselves through each rib, inextricable from her, part of her, impossible to tear out without destroying her in the process. It had taken root in her, and she was wrapped in each root and caught on each thorn.

 

_ Love.  _ She was in love. 

And it fucking  _ hurt _ . 

  
  
  


Lup started to feel angry. She was tired,  _ so fucking tired _ , she wanted to sleep, to actually sleep. Instead, she was bubbling over with stress and worry and an emotional pain that she didn’t want, that was only going to cause problems. 

 

_ Everything fucking hurt. _

There was nothing she could do about it. 

She had to just deal with that? With those feelings? That heaviness? That threat to her friendship, to her family? 

 

Why hadn’t it gone the fuck away. Why did it have to be so hard. 

It was just going to hurt and hurt and hurt. 

_ It wasn’t fair.  _

 

...

 

Lup was noticeably bitter and frequently easily angered over the smallest things. The crew tried to help, but they figured it was just the bad dreams and the lack of rest. But, it started to seem… really bad. She was irritable and impatient with everyone to the point that it didn’t even seem like her. And eventually, she pulled away entirely and confined herself to the twins’ bedroom. Barry had no idea what to do with himself. His dreams had made him so vulnerable to her, so obsessively worried for her and emotionally impacted by her every word and action. He couldn’t focus on anything but her. As she sat in her room, fuming, he also sat in his room, wringing his hands, anxiously waiting to hear her door open or any indication at all that she was okay. 

 

...

 

She started having dreams that she didn’t want to write down. That she didn’t  _ dare  _ write down. That she wanted to forget as quickly as possible. Dreams that made her feel sick to her stomach all day. Dreams of violence and death and screaming and tearing and ripping and shredding, but there was no monster there was no actual  _ thing _ and it wasn’t her or anyone else getting ripped apart, it was just… teeth, and flesh, everywhere. It seemed like the nightmares were responding to themself, or responding to her actions in them; responding to her trying to make the dreams safe and to keep the man from dying. Everything had short-circuited and there was no plot anymore, there was no scenery, no touch, no feelings. Only a flood of neural chemicals that created a raw fear so loud that reaction or thought or even a sense of self was impossible. 

  
  


She fell asleep again. She tried not to, but she hadn’t rested or meditated in so long. The rain beating against the ship, the wind rushing and whirling with the sounds of faint whispers in it -- it all faded away from her as she slipped into sleep. And as soon as her eyes closed, her entire field of view, her whole mind was full of disembodied teeth slicing through great waves of flesh. No matter what bone or mass of unknown material was wrapped in the endless pathways of muscle, the teeth easily tore it all to shreds and the sickening noises of popping gristle wet sucking cracking gurgling bubbling smacking growling melted into a constant drone of every nauseating sound at once, no... room for any other noise, not even possible to hear…………………………………………………………………………………………

  
  
  
  
  


Taako went to his and Lup’s room with a plate of food for her. He had been giving her as much space as she needed. She had been getting irritable even with him, which was so unfamiliar, so  _ wrong _ and just not part of their dynamic. He was devastated. 

 

And, as he thought about how bad things had been lately, plate in hand, opening the door, he saw an oddly motionless Lup in their bed. Too still. Not just sleeping. 

 

The plate dropped to the floor and so did he. 

 

***

 

Barry shifted in bed. Feeling the sheets pull against him. How many times had he run through the memory of sleeping next to her? He wanted that again, more than anything. But not only would he never try to make that happen, he would actively avoid creating a situation where that  _ could  _ happen. 

 

Lup -- was worth so much. A meaningful and important person. More than any other.

 

But…

 

He wanted to imagine that she was in his bed. 

 

Was that disrespectful to her? Was that wrong? 

 

What if he separated his idea of her -- what if there were Lup, and then…

 

His imaginary Lup. Who slept in his bed near him each night. Next to him so he could know that she was safe. So that they shared the same space the same breath the same warmth. So that he wouldn’t have to wait to see her smile in the morning. 

 

He gripped on to his extra pillow, hugging it. 

 

He wanted to hug Lup. 

 

He wanted to be closer to her, he wanted to know how to accept the closeness that she offered. He wanted to know how to offer closeness to her.

He had never known a person like her. And he knew that it was because there wasn’t one. She was brimming at the edges with pure sparkling love, an overflowing fountain, and he couldn’t… couldn’t get near. It would be wrong. 

It would be wrong. 

Because -- it had been over a decade of loving her. And that was all he would ever do. If feeling love for her could put anything into the universe that somehow benefited her or at least just expressed how wonderful she was, then that was all there even was to do. 

 

He slipped in and out of sleep. She was everywhere in his dreams. 

Every element, every sound, every as of yet unconceived idea --  e v e r y t h i n g within her was all that was needed to create a universe. 

She was more important than anything, and she covered the concept of everything; a person, a meaning, a definition, a feeling, a wind, a whisper, softness against skin, fall leaves, a word that made everything okay, the light in eyes, water to the dying, life to the dead.

 

And she wasn’t alive. 

So, he was dead. 

 

***

 

When they found Barry’s body, it was all Davenport could do to keep his composure in front of the remaining crew members. It was his actual worst nightmare playing out in front of him; something that could kill them when they were inside the ship. The one place where they were supposed to be safe no matter what. And the impossibly heavy rain and the constant lightning… he was scared that some sort of damage might happen to the ship, or maybe had already happened. When he had tried moving the ship somewhere else, it had been nearly impossible to see anything through the sheets of rain, and for as far as they traveled, nothing changed. He didn’t believe that it could be a planet-wide phenomenon, but then again it didn’t matter what he believed or what seemed logical; nothing ever went exactly according to their logic or knowledge on any planet, other than the one that they had called home so many years before.  

 

He tried not to, but he stressed and tossed and turned and couldn’t keep the nightmares away. He knew that staying up and becoming sleep deprived only seemed to have made it worse for Barry and Lup, so he continued to do his best to sleep as he normally would. He spent quiet time alone, willing himself to be calm. He played cards and board games with Merle throughout most of the day, he ate plenty, drank wine with the crew, maintained a serene outer appearance... no matter what it was that he was feeling inside. 

 

But it wasn’t enough.

 

***

  
  


The bodies. They didn’t know what to do about the bodies. 

  
  


Eventually, all that they could think of doing was to bring the ship up a bit, and to drop them out of the hatch. From there, with the ship covering them from the rain, Taako used a flame arrow, and then his transmutation ability to control flames, keeping the fire centralized and persisting until the bodies were gone. 

 

It was hard on Taako. The others gathered around him for comfort and support.

  
  


Taako made sure to only ever meditate for the rest of the year. He had better control over what unconscious activity happened for him, but getting actual rest out of meditating proved to be hard; he was distracted and burdened by sorrow, by the trauma of finding his sister’s body, by the strange way she had been acting before she died. Merle and Lucretia worked together to use what they had in the sunroom garden and in the pantry to brew a calming tea. They all slept together in the common room, cuddled up to Taako, petting his head and telling him soft stories and encouraging words. Magnus was like a furnace, keeping them all warm and comfortable. 

 

Together, very very close together, desperately clinging to each other, they made it through the rest of the year. 


	24. The Witching Hour

  
  


Barry woke up, stretched, and was surprised by a sharp pain in his arm. They just got there the day before and, as was usual for their first day on a new planet, he and Lup hadn’t even done all that much work yet; just grabbed some specimens from near the ship. So, he was unsure as to why he would be injured. He figured he must have just slept on it weird.

 

He was awake earlier than he had intended to be, but there was no going back to sleep. Especially with the distracting pain in his arm. So, he got dressed and went to the kitchen. 

 

The hallway was filled with the scent of fresh coffee. He was sure that it was Lup, and his heart quickened. Making it to the kitchen proved him right. Lup was there in an oversized t-shirt, striped shorts and fuzzy slippers. He secretly loved it whenever she was having a casual, sleepy day, her braids loose from being slept in, her eyes only half open. 

 

Once she noticed him come in, she gave him her sleepy, closed-eye smile. “Mornin’, Barry.” And just like that, his day was already perfect. 

 

“Hey, Lup. You’re up early, too?” 

 

“Ugh, yeah. Don’t know what it is but I’m like, super fucking tired but also awake as hell? Figured if sleep isn’t gonna happen, then coffee and the lab was the next step. You in?”

 

“Heh. Always.” 

 

With coffee mugs in hand they entered the lab, ready to work on the samples they had gathered the day before, expecting to find their labeled boxes full of jars and dishes. But instead, they found their equipment already set up and all of their standard tests running. Not only that, but they looked like they were far enough along in their individual processes to be yielding results. It was a procedure that would have taken an entire day’s worth of work for both of them to set up. They stood, silently staring at the scene, holding mugs of coffee, not knowing where to start, what to say, what to think. Lup finally turned to look at Barry, puzzled concern on her face.

 

“So. That’s pretty fucking weird, right? Umm. What now?” 

 

“Y-yeah. I guess uh, let’s go check in with everyone? See if there’s anything else up, and what we can put together from there?”

 

“That’s why they pay you the big bucks, Barold.” Lup tried to laugh, but she was disturbed. And she was tired. She was so tired of exceptionally weird and messed up things happening to them. 

 

…

 

Out in the common room, everyone was already gathered together, each puzzling over a different mystery. 

 

“So, garden’s already set up.” Merle was turned away from the group, looking out the window. “And I sure as hell didn’t do it.”

 

Magnus sat on the couch, hunched over with a hand propping up his face, looking deep in thought.

 

“I’ve got dirt and crud on three days worth of clothes piled up for the wash right now.”

 

Lup’s eyes widened. “Luc, what about your journals? What have you got written down?”

 

“I’ve already checked them.” Lucretia’s eyes were turned to the floor, looking lost. “There’s nothing in them except for the log of our first day. Yesterday, but… I guess maybe not yesterday.” 

 

Taako was sitting rigidly on the couch rather than his usual sprawled out self. “Went to make breakfast with that little thing of gourmet lemon butter that we got last year. Fancy first-morning breakfast, yknow? Buuut, it’s gone. So. There’s that for ya.” 

 

Davenport was sitting at the table, looking especially serious, facing away from the crew. “The ship’s internal clock is stopped.”

 

“The fuck?” Lup tried to calm herself. It was weird, for sure. But at least they were all there and they were all safe. She felt confident that her and Barry could figure things out; it had to be something that could be answered with science. Or at least with excellent observational abilities and lateral thinking skills like a motherfucker -- she had a lot of faith in Barry. He would probably have ten different testable ideas on what was going on before lunch time. 

 

As if he could hear her thoughts, Barry turned to Lup and made the very slight shoulder movement and questioning face that had become their way of signaling to each other ‘To the lab?’ Lup gave him an almost imperceptible nod. He headed to the lab right away while Lup followed Taako to their room to check in with him, first.

 

“How are you doing?” 

 

Taako looked unusually tense. “Well, just kind of tired of bullshit like this, yknow?”

 

Lup let out a frustrated sigh. “Gods, do I know. But… hopefully Barry and I can figure something out. We’ll probably take a hike around the area in a couple hours and see if-”

 

“LuLu.” Taako took Lup’s hand, holding it with both of his own. “I swear. I will be so fucking mad at you if you die.” 

 

Lup smiled half heartedly. He tried to say it like a joke, but she knew that he was hurting. The year before had been hard, and the way that she had been acting before she died... And they had only had half of a day together since regenerating; that they could remember, at least. It was still too fresh, Taako would barely be able to hold himself together if she were gone again. She moved her other hand over to grasp both of his. 

 

“I won’t take any chances. And I’ll make Barry check and do everything first.” She got a smile out of Taako, even though he almost looked like he was on the verge of tears. 

 

“Cool. I don’t care if  _ he  _ blows up.” 

 

“You don’t mean that.” Lup pinched Taako’s cheek. “You love him.” 

 

A sly smile slowly spread over Taako’s face and he wiggled his eyebrows at Lup. “Well.  _ Someone  _ here does.”

 

“Oh, fuck you! I’m never telling you shit again.” She shoved Taako’s shoulder before going off to the lab, laughing as she went, but nervous. She wasn’t sure when to tell him more. 

 

“Hey, Lu,” Taako called her back just as she reached the doorway. She turned, thinking that he needed something else. But, he closed his eyes, clasped his hands together, pursed his lips and made the most exaggerated, obnoxious kissing noises at her. She flipped him off before turning to go down the hallway, laughing the teasing off, but also blushing uncontrollably over it.

 

…

 

Lup joined Barry in the lab. He was sitting in his chair, thinking. He didn’t know where to start. All the experiments that they had up and running were just part of their standard routine; testing the soil, any plant matter they were able to find, water. Just a general safety check and info-gathering run at things. They most likely weren’t going to find anything there that would answer their questions, but he’d look over it all later anyways. Lup sat down in her chair and carefully watched Barry’s face while he was lost in thought. 

 

“Any ideas, Bear?”

 

“Not really. Just going over what we know so far, again and again. The garden, nothing in Lucretia’s journal… also, we have all these specimens that I don’t remember us gathering on our first day, and all of their labels are blank. Not really feeling anything happening there though, so probably next step is to go out and see what we can find. Maybe this is some weird, light-related thing and it’s nearby. You up for a hike?”

 

Lup grinned. “Always.” 

 

As they stepped back out into the common room, the atmosphere was tense. They were immediately jumped on with questions from the rest of the crew, reports of other small things they had noticed, voicing fears and concerns and -- 

 

Lup stealthily slipped into the kitchen while Barry got grilled by everyone else. She figured if she could pack them lunch, they could spend most of the day outside if they needed to. Seemed like a good idea regardless; they weren’t going to find out a whole lot with everyone panicking and piling unanswerable questions onto Barry. 

 

…

 

On their walk, they didn’t find anything of much interest. The landscape was fairly normal, familiar. The only living things were a few scattered stone creatures that they had seen when they were flying over on their first day, looking for somewhere to land. When they surveyed their immediate surroundings after landing, they came across a couple of them outside. They seemed entirely uninterested in the crew and weren’t hostile. Lup was still uneasy about them though; they had dealt with things before that seemed fine until they weren’t. But, at least it was a good sign that their garden was all set up and attended to. That meant that they had been able to spend a significant part of the day, for multiple days, safely working outside. 

 

“Well. I just -- I don’t even know what I’m looking for, Lup. This is all just… it’s a lot.”

 

“Maybe we need to take a break? Get ourselves centered. We’re not going to figure anything out while we’re frustrated.”

 

Barry breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

 

“Wanna do lunch at that tree over there? Looks like a perfect spot; good view, too. Who knows? Maybe we’ll actually see something important from there.” Lup forced a smile and grabbed Barry by the sleeve of his robe and led the way. 

 

When they got to the tree and walked around it to the side overlooking the lush, green valley, Barry tripped over something. Lup looked down and saw two notebooks and two pencils.  _ Their _ notebooks and pencils. They were their extras, new ones that they had just got in their last cycle. 

 

“The fuck?” Lup bent over to pick them up. They each were dog-eared to a spot a couple of pages in. But there was nothing on those pages. So why were they marked? 

 

Barry stared at the notebooks in her hands. “I guess we’ve been here before?” 

 

“Yeah, I guess that’s what it is. But, why didn’t we write anything down?” 

 

“Right. And then there’s our blank labels and Lucretia’s journal...” While Barry pondered the new information, Lup slumped against the tree and sat on the ground. 

 

“You alright, Lup?” 

 

She sighed and stared off into the far expanse of valley in front of them. “Yeah. It’s just exhausting. We have other things we need to be doing; expanding our knowledge, getting stronger, looking for the light, trying to find answers to stopping the Hunger… not  _ this _ . And I don’t feel good about this. What if this is just gonna be our year, Barry? What if we get  _ nothing _ done?”

 

Barry sat down next to Lup on the ground. He looked blankly off into the distance, his eyebrows furrowed, not knowing what to say or how to make Lup feel better. The silence between them was -- he didn’t like it. She needed comfort. They both did. 

 

Barry inhaled and, while continuing to look out at the valley lit up with the late afternoon sun, he leaned closer to Lup and put an arm around her. Her lip quivered. How did he know exactly what she needed? Just -- to be comforted. There were no words that could do it. Having him close helped. 

 

But, they didn’t dare look at each other. They watched silently as the sun entered the last bit of sky before it would start dipping behind the distant hills, signaling the approaching night. The temperature dropped a bit and Lup was suddenly aware of how much time had passed; and Barry’s arm was still around her. She tilted, slightly at first, unsure -- and then let herself slide, leaning into him. He curled his arm further around her and brought his other arm over, encircling her with an embrace that was meant to communicate to her without words that he was in it with her, that things were frequently bad, but they were experiencing the bad together and trying to be something good for each other whenever they could. And being in his arms was -- it was something good. 

 

The whole situation had Barry feeling oddly calm. There was no reason to panic about Lup being in his arms because it felt  _ right _ for her to be in his arms. There was nothing in the universe that made more sense than her in his arms. 

  
  


Eventually, they had to leave. They had to get back to the crew and see if anything else had been discovered and to check on how they were doing. But it was so hard to leave. 

 

***

 

Lup was jarred awake. It was still dark out. She felt sore all over even though they had only gotten there the day before, and her and Barry hadn’t even done a whole lot of work yet. They just grabbed some stuff from their immediate surroundings, labeled the specimens, and then set them aside for testing later. It was customary for them to only get the basics done on the first day, then they would spend a while all together, just being close, before getting some good rest in. Those annual escapes from the apocalypse were never going to get any easier emotionally, even when they didn’t lose anyone during the year. They always desperately needed to breathe after that. Take care of basics to judge the safety of their new plane, but then just breathe, just be with each other.

 

So, it was pretty fucking confusing when Lup felt like there was a bruise on her leg. Unless she just completely didn’t notice knocking into something? Banged her leg against the dining table or? Whatever. No point in being too bothered by it, it wasn’t going to kill her or anything. She left her room to step out onto the deck. 

 

Outside, peering over the side of the ship, she could see faint glimmering moving around in the night not far off and could hear the sound of stone grating against itself. They had seen a few of them when they were flying overhead; smallish humanoid stone creatures, white, with a sort of cloudy translucence to them, like moonstone. They moved the way you would expect something made out of stone to move -- slow and stiff, only managing to take a step forward about every thirty seconds, moving their arms in unison with their legs each time they did. They hadn’t interacted with them or the world in general much yet, but from what they had gathered, they weren’t hostile at all. They seemed to pay no attention to their presence whatsoever, in fact. But, they had dealt with things like that before, and it eventually didn’t turn out well...

 

Looking up at the sky, she drank in the beautiful sight of the planet’s three moons; they were arranged in an arc, the middle moon a bit above the other two. She heard a noise come from behind her and turned to see Barry walking out onto the deck. She smiled and gave him a small wave before turning back around to look at the sky. If she watched him as he approached, she was going to have way too much going on in her face. To her, it had only been a couple days since she realized just how deeply she felt for him, since she had died shortly after. She regenerated with that feeling pressed into her bones. She felt tingling between her shoulder blades, like her body could tell that he was walking towards her. She couldn’t help but hold her breath, anticipating him standing next to her. Wanting to see how close he would be. 

 

He made it to her side, and of course being Barry, he left a respectable distance between the two of them. It was yet another quality of his that was considerate and something to be admired about him, but gods if she didn’t want him to be a few inches closer. He was already looking at her when she turned her head away from the moons to greet him. But she stopped short, and didn’t say anything, just looked at him instead. Barry quickly got nervous. 

 

“H-hey, Lup.” 

 

She felt her entire body sigh softly at his voice, but the dreamy feeling she was consumed with was abruptly yanked away by the observation she had just made. She leaned in a little bit closer to Barry, looking over his face, not saying anything. Barry’s eyes were widening and as she turned away from the railing to step towards him, fully closing the small gap between them, her eyes traveling across his features, his heart was vibrating more than beating. But Lup was calm. Even though being that close to Barry was something that frequently overwhelmed and excited her just to think about, she was somehow calm. And then, she was concerned. 

 

Barry noticed the look in her eyes and knew that what seemed to be happening, was in fact, not happening. But he couldn’t stop the adrenaline flooding through him and pooling in his lungs, anyways. She raised a hand to his face and gently swiped it across his cheek. 

 

“That’s. Strange.” 

 

He couldn’t speak, he was only able to make a questioning noise under his breath.  

 

“Barry, you look like you haven’t shaved in a grip.” 

 

He raised a hand to his face to scratch at his stubble. “Shit, huh. That’s, uh-- huh, we just got here—” 

 

It was confusing, concerning. She knew they should be figuring out what it was and what it meant, but her hand was stuck to his face, magnetically attracted, she couldn’t take it away. They were standing  _ so  _ close. She was able to see small, soft features that she had never noticed before; little lines by his eyes, a few scattered grey hairs in his eyebrows. It was like seeing him in a completely new way. And likewise, he was concerned and confused, but transfixed. He was still only half awake, and with the faint, distant alien sounds, the unusually still air, and the perfect body temperature environment outside, things felt surreal, dreamlike. But, confusing reality with dreams had never happened to him. The feeling of being awake was far too distinct from dreaming for him to have ever thought that, but just then -- he couldn’t feel himself, his body, or even the shooting pain in his arm that he had woken up with. It was like being in a sensory deprivation tank, just looking at Lup; all of his senses were numb and dulled and gone except for the sense that Lup was there.

 

She stopped examining his face and her gaze settled on his eyes. Everything was so uncertain, frequently terrifying, discouraging, exhausting -- but Barry was always there. And he made things so much better. He was a certainty when things were unreliable. His ability to make her happy: a guarantee. She -- needed him. She was so, so glad to have him there. She couldn’t even stand to imagine what things would have been like without him. 

 

And she also had Taako, most importantly but that meant… she had a pillar of support like Taako, and Barry had… she was suddenly overcome with sympathy for Barry, for him not having more. She wanted  _ so  _ much for him. They all had each other of course, but  _ that _ kind of connection and support _ …  _ that was different. And only she got to have it.

 

At the tell tale sting of tears pressing at the back of her eyes, she sighed and looked down to hide the mix of emotions on her face. And in looking down, she saw that there was practically no space between them. She tilted forward, barely, and still looking down, she set her forehead against his shoulder, her face buried in his chest. She brought her arms up, slipping them under his and wrapping them around him. He was frozen, but sensed that Lup was feeling something, needing something. So he carefully put his arms around her, holding them lightly against her, almost hovering. But then she pushed her face into his chest harder, moving her head almost like she was burrowing, trying to use the pressure of her face against his body to keep from crying, and she wrapped her arms around him tighter. He was overwhelmed, undone, melted, and he inhaled sharply and held her tighter, letting his head drop and settling his face into her hair.  

 

They held onto each other, neither able to speak through the emotional noise weighing on them. Neither of them knew what that moment meant to the other, but they were both comforted by each other. Nothing else mattered. 

 

Barry heard Lup’s muffled voice, thick with the sound of tears being held back,    
“I’m… glad you’re here.“

 

All he could do was exhale from the pit of his chest, which allowed her face to sink against him further as he arched over her, his cheek against the top of her head, feeling her hair, closing his eyes, and holding her just a little bit tighter. 

 

“I don’t know what I would do without you, Lup.”  

 

They held onto each other until their breathing matched and they recovered their breath, their bodies, their ability to function, together. They lightly let go of each other, moving back only enough to regard each other’s eyes. And neither of them were wracked with adrenaline or choked by fastened heart rates. They felt a blissful sense of calm as they looked each other over, studying each other’s faces for thoughts, feelings. And as they continued to look, not saying anything, their eyes both pleading with each other, it almost felt like they should, but -- should they? Did the other want to, or -- the moment was so perfect, so comforting, so  _ needed. _ It was delicate and it couldn’t be soured by anything, especially not a misunderstanding or a false move that would change the dynamic of the moment, of their  _ friendship _ . It was too perfect to risk ending badly. Especially -- gods, especially if it made it seem like that was all that the moment boiled down to; just one of them trying to make a move on the other. It would strip all significance, all sincerity away. 

 

So they stepped apart and leaned against the railing, but close enough together for their arms to be up against each other. The sun started to come up and they watched in hushed silence for several minutes before Lup’s ability to think returned and she looked back at Barry, at his face, his unusually overgrown scruff; her original observation. And he knew what she was looking at and thinking, and that he needed to be thinking about that too, and that their moment was at its end. 

 

That’s when Lup noticed something on the ground below from the corner of her eye. She moved along the deck to look over the edge and Barry followed her. 

 

Outside of the door to the Starblaster was Merle’s garden, all set up and well underway in its growth. And on the ground running parallel to the garden’s edge was a line of very intentionally placed small stones. 

 

…

 

Walking inside from the deck, Barry and Lup found that everyone else had woken up. Merle’s face was pressed up against the window facing the garden. Hearing Barry and Lup walk into the room, he turned to them.

 

“Hey, you two. So uhh, my garden’s all set up. And I sure as hell didn’t do it. Know anything about that?”

 

Davenport sat at the dining table, rubbing at his temples, eyes closed. His face was also scruffy rather than in its usual, well groomed state. Lucretia was sitting across from him, a blank look on her face, several of her journals piled in front of her. Taako and Magnus were over on the couches, talking to each other. After scanning the room, Lup responded to Merle.

 

“Yeeeah, we noticed that. And no, we don’t know but, uh-”

 

“Yo, science officer!” Taako perked up at seeing Barry and Lup from the other side of the room. “You gonna do a science for us? Do a science or two? Science this business out?” 

 

“Uh, yeah Taako. I’m gonna try.” 

 

“I’m fairly certain that we’re experiencing some sort of memory loss phenomenon.” Davenport was still rubbing at his temples as he spoke. “And judging from the clues left around, I don’t think it’s happened only once.” 

 

Lup sat at the table by Davenport. “What do you mean by clues, Cap’n?”

 

“There’s the row of stones by the garden. I think maybe we’re trying to count days. And I think we should probably go set another stone on the line. I had a mirror on the bed next to me when I woke up this morning, I guess so that I would notice my face right away. And I can’t think of a reason why I wouldn’t shave other than to quickly signal to myself that something is wrong and that a lot of time has passed. The ship’s internal clock isn’t working, so I have no damn clue how long we’ve been here. Lucretia’s journals are empty except for regeneration day. This is all...” Davenport trailed off. 

 

Lup muttered under her breath, “What the hell?”  

  
  


...

 

“Wanna take our lunch to that tree we saw from the deck? Maybe a little space from the panic will help us think of something.” 

 

Lup put together a pack with food for them, and Barry stood near her in the kitchen, asking if he could help with anything. 

 

“I’ve got it, Bear.” She squeezed his arm as she passed by him to grab them a couple bottles of water. It was such a small gesture, but after that morning -- everything felt heavy with meaning. 

 

They left the ship and headed for the tree, planning to hike and search and see what they could find out afterwards. But when they got to the tree, someone had obviously been there before… and they quickly realized that that someone was them. Two of their notebooks were on the ground at the base of the tree. They picked them up and thumbed through the pages, noticing that one of the pages in each of their books was marked. But they found nothing written in them. 

 

“Okay, so -- I’m going to guess that we definitely absolutely wrote something down, right?” Lup picked up her pencil off of the ground. 

 

Barry continued to flip through the pages of his notebook, looking them over and over, just in case. He absent-mindedly nodded in agreement with Lup. 

 

Lup started to write in her notebook. “And I’m writing in here just fine. So, it’s not that we  _ can’t  _ write anything. So  _ what  _ the  _ fuck  _ gives?” 

 

“I — I mean, there’s no indentations, no eraser marks. No physical evidence that anything was ever on these pages in the first place. And it’s not like time is resetting; we’ve got all these things that we’ve been working on that are well underway.” Barry set his notebook down, feeling defeated. 

 

“And your face,” Lup added.

 

“Yeah. And my face.” He sighed. Then, he thought of something. “I’m gonna write on a page and rip it out — keep it with us so we can see if anything changes with it throughout the day?”

 

“That definitely is at least a thing to do!” Lup ripped out her own page that she had already written on and shoved it into her pocket. 

 

… 

 

After lunch, they spent hours circling further and further outside of their origin point at the ship. They checked in frequently with Davenport via their stones. They had nothing of interest to tell him, and Davenport only had news of other, subtle things they all had noticed around the ship. Everything they found only further confirmed the passing of time though, and didn’t shed light on any new information. Barry and Lup intermittently checked the pages in their pockets and saw nothing different. They searched for anything that they didn’t already have a sample of, but the landscape was so ordinary and with so few plants -- everything that they saw, they already had covered. 

 

…

 

As the day wound down and they had all exhausted themselves trying to figure out anything at all, they had to table it so that they could rest, get their heads right, and try again the next day. They all intently wrote down everything they could. Even if that seemed to be useless. Davenport and Barry agreed not to shave, just to leave themselves another indication of the time that had passed. Merle and Magnus weren’t exactly good measures for that, being as filled out as they already were. 

 

And they all went to sleep. Not knowing what would happen next. 

 

***

 

Magnus woke up and stretched. He felt tired and worn out. Usually, he was at his best after that first deep sleep post-regeneration. Then, he noticed pain in his arm. He pulled the blanket off of himself and looked -- there was a large cut on his upper arm. It didn’t make any sense. He hadn’t injured himself the day before; they had made it custom to take it easy on regeneration day. Everything had been very mellow and he definitely didn’t do anything that could have caused a cut like that. Did it happen while he was sleeping? He looked around the room. There wasn’t anything or anyone in there with him or any sign of a break-in. But, surely he would have woken up if something had come in and attacked him. He was panicking. He got up and threw on clothes; he had to go check on the others. He paused for a moment when he noticed a pile of dirty laundry on the spot of the floor where he always threw his clothes at the end of the day. There was several days worth of clothing there. It made no sense. He rushed to the common room, hoping that everyone else was awake already. 

 

Magnus scanned the room. Merle had his face pressed up against the window, Davenport was sitting at the dining table, leaning back into his chair, looking frustrated. Magnus noticed that his hair was grown out and his face unkempt. Lucretia came walking in from the hallway, several journals pressed against herself with crossed arms. And the room was a mess; there were things all over the place that weren’t there the night before. 

 

“There you are,” Taako walked up behind Magnus from the kitchen, Magnus flipped around to face him, his face blank, still trying to process -- anything.

 

“Now. Be honest with me. Did you eat all of my-” Taako stopped short when he noticed the slice across Magnus’s upper arm. 

 

“The hell happened to you? You already out fighting bears at the crack of dawn?” 

 

“No, uh. Taako, look around. I don’t know what’s happening.” 

 

Barry and Lup entered the room just in time to hear Magnus. 

 

“Hey there, Mags,” Lup walked by Magnus and made a beeline for Taako. She put her arms around him, closed her eyes, and tried to keep calm while Barry addressed the crew.

 

“So, uh -- All my lab experiments are in their late stages. And also my face is a mess. What have you all found?”

 

Davenport just pointed to his face and then waved around at the room. Lucretia cleared her throat. 

 

“My journals that were supposed to be for this year are, uh. Empty. Except for yesterday… or maybe not yesterday, I guess.”

 

Merle spoke up, face and palms still against the window. “My garden is all set up. And it looks like there’s already stuff ready to be picked.” 

 

“Hey, Merle?” Magnus got him to finally turn around. “Could I get a heal over here?” 

 

“Shit, what’d you do to yourself, buddy?” 

 

“I’d tell ya if I knew.” Magnus sat on the floor and held out his arm as Merle walked over to him. 

 

Barry cut back in. “I noticed that I have some totally unnecessary tests set up in the lab. I’m guessing because they’re ones that have a pretty consistent processing time. They’re around a month into the process, give or take a few days. But I guess -- there’s no way of knowing how far along the year already was when I started them? But, I think it’s obvious that we’re experiencing memory loss, and that it hasn’t only happened once. It’s pretty clear that we’ve been setting up messages to ourselves.” 

 

Lup, still holding on to Taako, looked up towards Davenport. “What about the ship? It’s always keeping track of our time each plane.”

 

Davenport shook his head. “Not now it isn’t. First thing I checked this morning.” 

 

“Shit,” Lup muttered under her breath, dropping her head onto Taako’s shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her before cutting in.

 

“Well, my thing seems petty now; missing a bunch of ingredients I really wanted to use this morning. I mean, still mad about my thing though, so. Taako’s hurting here, too.” 

 

He looked over at Barry. “Seems like you’ve already got at least some stuff figured out. You gonna get to the bottom of this for us, Bear-Bear?” 

An air of determination settled across Barry’s face. He looked almost stern. “Yeah. I am.” 

 

With his other arm still around Lup, Taako fake-swooned at Barry’s uncharacteristic severity. “Oh, Barold! I got shivers! Barry’s gonna save us, everyone!” 

 

And Barry was nervous again. Because of Taako being embarrassing, but also at the thought of him being responsible for fixing everything. That fear of letting everyone down crept up on him again.

 

“U-uh. Yeah, okay -- I will, I guess. Uh, Lup? Did you want-” 

 

“Yep!” Lup straightened up, and gave Taako one last squeeze. “I’m gonna go help.”

 

Taako squeezed her back. “You be careful. I won’t talk to you ever again if you die.” 

 

They let their hold on each other go and Lup stuck her tongue out at Taako as she trotted off after Barry. 

  
…

 

Lup skipped next to Barry as they walked. She was of course deeply bothered by -- whatever it was that was going on, but a thought had wormed into her head that was making her giddy. If they were losing their memory, and it seemed most likely that it was happening daily, then… anything she did that day wouldn’t be remembered. Wouldn’t matter. It could be possible to -- play around with that potential. Take advantage of it. Have at least a day or, even just a few hours of  _ knowing _ . Of knowing for sure where she stood. How she was seen. What was or wasn’t felt about her. It still made her incredibly nervous to think about, though. It was hard not to still have the same amount of anxiety, even with knowing that it would be washed away the next day. 

 

“Wanna do lunch at that tree over there? Looks like a perfect spot; good view, too. Who knows? Maybe we’ll actually see something important from there.” Barry nodded and before he could even say anything, Lup smiled wide and grabbed Barry by his hand and led the way. 

 

They made their way to the shady tree with surfacing roots large enough to sit on, and once they walked around the tree to the side that faced the valley, Barry tripped over something. Lup moved forward to grab him, even though he wasn’t even close to actually falling -- and she ended up with both of her arms around him, their faces close as he straightened up. Lup let her arms linger, and she looked into his eyes for a few seconds, lost her nerve, and let go of him, laughing. 

 

“Careful there! Don’t want to lose you to something like falling over a tree root.” 

 

Barry laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to tilt his head slightly away from Lup to hide his reddened face. “Yeah, that would be a pretty embarrassing way to die.”

 

“Don’t worry, I would make up a cool story for you.” She gasped at an idea, “Ooh! I could say that you died saving my life!” They both sat down together at the base of the tree. Lup sidled up closer to Barry once they were sitting. “I mean, that’s totally believable, anyways. It’s definitely something that you would do.”

 

Barry tried, really tried not to, but he was blushing profusely again anyways. He continued to avert his eyes from Lup, pretending to look at the valley or act like he was focused on unpacking their food. 

 

“Y-yeah, of course, Lup. You know I would do anything for you.”           _ Fuck. _

 

Barry froze. Lup didn’t say a word. She was trying to casually hide her smile under her hand, blushing while feeling a lightness rush through her body as the words echoed in her head. Barry turned slightly to try and catch her reaction from the corner of his eye and saw that she was facing away a bit. So, he turned to fully look at her. And saw that  _ she  _ was  _ blushing. _ The tension was unbearable and he felt like something had to be said, the silence had to be filled, he was --

 

“U-uh --um, s-so what is uh- what do you think is- or what, uhh… S-so, I think after this, the n-next --” Barry paused his nervous rambling when something on the ground a few feet from them caught his eye. “U-uh, Lup? Isn’t that your-”

 

Lup saw what Barry saw, and her attention shifted to that and away from the explosions of feelings that were just flooding her entire body. “That’s my notebook.” She moved forward on to her hands and knees to grab it, then rocked back into her seat next to Barry. She held the book out in front of them and flipped through the pages. “That’s weird. Nothing.” 

 

“All the labels on the sample containers for the running tests in the lab were blank -- and Lucretia had nothing in her journals.” Barry raised his hand to stroke his chin, thinking. “I really -- I have no idea what that could possibly mean. But, there are always going to be things about other planes that we won’t be able to comprehend no matter how hard we try, I guess. I think the main goal here is to just figure out how to communicate with ourselves each day and how to survive this.” 

 

Lup nodded. It was true. They had a lot to think about and important things to try and accomplish in a short amount of time to do whatever they could to make sure that their future selves would continue to be safe. She sobered and the giddiness died down. 

 

“Well,” Lup let herself lean back against the tree. “Let’s just -- try some random stuff. Throw some spaghetti around, right? Let’s see --” Lup looked around them, trying to get an idea from anything. She hopped up and walked a few feet over and grabbed a stick. 

 

“We haven’t been able to write anything on paper, right? What if we write stuff into the dirt? We obviously have been here more than once so, maybe we’ll come back tomorrow and maybe there’ll be something here?” Barry shrugged.

 

“That’s more than anything I’ve got.” Barry got up and looked around for his own stick.

 

They walked over to a wide patch of dirt at the base of the tree that was between the roots and away from the grass. Barry was contemplating what to write when he looked over at Lup, who was already fast at work. Barry immediately doubled over in laughter. 

 

“Oh my gods, Lup. How many times are you going to write ‘fuck’?”

 

“However many times it takes, Barold! This is for science!” 

…

 

After filling in the patch of dirt with words, numbers, doodles, and a game of hangman, Lup and Barry returned to the ship. Everyone else had done what they could with the day; harvested from the garden, did some very cautious foraging, scoured the ship for any more clues from themselves or just any sign of  _ anything _ unusual. They all agreed that there wasn’t much to do except to try and leave things to signal to their future selves any information they could, and hopefully it would build over time until they could figure something out. Other than that, the most useful things to do were to keep their food stocks up, make sure that they and the ship were safe, and to get through to the end of the year, whenever that was going to happen. 

 

The crew spent the last bit of the day close to each other, having dinner and talking afterwards, still sometimes trying to throw out a theory or something to try here and there. But, mostly checking in with each other emotionally. The most important thing was that everyone needed to be okay and cared for and comforted.  _ That  _ was what would pull them through in the end.

 

As the crew left to go get some rest and prepare themselves for the next day one by one, Barry and Lup eventually found themselves alone on the couch.   

 

They kept delaying going to sleep. And it was -- so obvious. Multiple times, there was a lull in the conversation and they were yawning and visibly exhausted, barely able to keep their eyes open. It would have normally been the time that they would have said goodnight, but they kept hesitating. And then one of them would inevitably find a way to start the conversation again, even if it was something they had already talked about or a completely unrelated topic; anything to keep talking, to keep sitting next to each other. They both could feel heat rising in their faces as it became more and more apparent that they were both doing the same thing, and that it was probably for the same reason. Their smiles turned awkward and soft, they kept looking at each other and then looking away, they started to intentionally allow pauses to happen in the conversation, until the tension was too much and they got nervous and started talking again. 

 

She wanted to kiss him so bad. She almost gave in at least a dozen times. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears and the constant adrenaline spikes were giving her a headrush. She was going to faint or implode or  _ something _ if it didn’t happen. And probably even more so if it did. She imagined it over and over; it would feel so good to give in, to feel herself in his arms… she couldn’t stop wondering what kissing him would be like, what experiencing intimacy with him would be like -- it was probably the last thing that she didn’t know about him. The only side that was hidden still  _ what would it be like to _ … 

 

It got the point where every single breath that she took was paired with a jump of adrenaline.  _ What if I did it… now? What if… now?... I could just --  _ . It was enough that Barry could sense that there was something happening, and he felt paralyzed. He stopped talking entirely. He could only look at her.

 

After the hundredth time of telling herself no, she told herself yes, and before she could lose her nerve she grabbed his shoulder and pulled him close. She moved into him, dove at his lips and threaded her arms under his. He set his hands on her waist and with their eyes closed, they finally spoke their feelings to each other through the touch of their lips. 

 

***

 

Barry and Lup woke up together on the couch, Lup’s arms draped over his shoulders, her head buried in his chest. He was resting his chin on the top of her head with an arm curled around behind her. His hand was settled perfectly against her hip, fitting over her as if it belonged there, like a missing puzzle piece to her body. As soon as they were fully aware of themselves, they sprang apart from each other, both blushing wildly. 

 

Barry rubbed the back of his neck, trying to look away so that Lup didn’t see his eyes wide like a scared animal.

 

“Heh -- u-uh, must’ve drank a lot last night or s-something?”

 

Lup vigorously nodded. “Mmhmm, yep that sounds about right.” She nervously laughed. 

 

Barry calmed himself enough to turn towards her, trying to face her like everything was normal, but still could only set his eyes on the couch cushion. “I-I’m sorry -- I didn’t mean to-”

 

“Oh no, no Barry, it’s okay. I know. Besides, I was like, laying over you, so  _ I’m _ sorry.” 

 

“N-no, Lup, that’s okay, that’s uh --” Barry trailed off, confusion spreading across his face. 

“A-actually uh.  _ Did  _ we drink last night?” 

 

Lup furrowed her eyebrows. “Yeah, I didn’t think so -- and I mean, I’ve never in my life gotten so drunk that I couldn’t even remember when I  _ started _ drinking. 

 

“So…?” 

 

“So.” 

 

“I -- actually, I remember going to my room and going to bed?” Barry became concerned enough to momentarily forget his embarrassment. 

 

“Yeah. I remember us all having dinner and talking and then going to bed. Sooo, what the fuck? Did we both mutually sleep walk out he--” Lup stopped short just as she was finally able to bring herself to fully look at him, and she leaned towards Barry. Already feeling flustered from just having Lup draped over him, he couldn’t process what it meant that she was moving back toward him, closely looking him over. But the look on her face was quizzical, like she was inspecting something, and that brought him back to reality a bit. 

 

“Barry… how did you get this scruffy overnight?” 

 

Barry touched his face. “Wow. I do not know. Umm…”

 

Lup looked at their surroundings. “And there’s stuff all over the room that definitely was not there last night.” She turned back to Barry. “Is this some fairytale bullshit where we fell asleep for a hundred years, but maybe in our case like, a couple months?” 

 

Barry nervously laughed. Whatever it was that was happening, he was having a hard time stopping his thoughts from wandering back to the feeling of the brief moment where Lup was wrapped up in his arms. That was…

 

But why did they wake up like that? If they woke up like that, it meant that at some point they had to have gone to sleep like that. And how could that happen if they had gone to their individual rooms after the regeneration dinner hang-out? What happened in between? 

 

He puzzled only over how he and Lup ended up like that, and momentarily forgot about his face. They heard noises coming from the hall. As the crew appeared one by one, they saw all the looks of concern and knew right away that they had their work cut out for them. 

 

...

 

Barry and Lup split up every task that they came up with. They were both having a hard time concentrating around each other and would both anxiously offer to go off and retrieve things or complete something every time the other one needed anything. They knew that working together was the best approach, but with the emotional shake-up caused from how they woke up, it seemed like in that one case, working together was maybe not ideal. 

 

Lup went to the common room and wrote down a list of every observation she could make, every single thing that was out of place or hadn’t been there the night before. She listed every observation that the crew had made, and then she moved on to examine every other area of the ship that she could. 

 

She checked on their food reserves -- a pretty significant chunk had been gone through. They kept a list of the inventory that they started with each year, and crossed off items as they ran out of them. And next to those items, they would write the number of the day they had ran out… it was just generally helpful in keeping track of how long things lasted, what items they maybe should  prioritize or make more room for. Things of that nature. And Lup finally found something interesting. 

 

Back in the lab, Lup went up to Barry and held out the list to him. He looked at her questioningly, but then took it into his hands. 

 

“Check it out -- the pencil marks from crossing items out are there, but the number for the day they ran out isn’t.” 

 

Barry looked over the list and shook his head. “What in the world could that even mean? I guess that shows that we haven’t known what day it was this whole time -- and judging by the food depleted, that time seems like a while. Several months, at least.”

 

Lup nodded. “And even if we didn’t know what day it was, don’t you think we would have written  _ something _ next to it still? Maybe even at least which thing ran out first, second, last… I don’t really know.”

 

Barry thought for a moment. He went to stroke his chin and was surprised again at the stubble that he had forgotten about. “Or… we  _ just  _ experienced a memory wipe, and all of the written information was erased all at once.”

 

“But, there are so many intentionally placed things. And the line of stones by the garden that Davenport thinks is us trying to count days -- I think we’re piling on hints and passing information to ourselves as we try to figure this out each day that it happens.” Lup started to get excited, talking fast and confidently, feeling like there was maybe a thread being tugged at that might unravel something. 

 

“Yeah, you’re right. And --” he ran his hand across his face, “if everything had been normal up until a point, I wouldn’t have this.”  

 

With something in their hands finally that they could throw ideas back and forth on, they forgot a bit about their discomfort and eased back into working together. Until Lup brought it up again. 

 

“So… this might be uncomfortable, but -- do you think we were trying to signal something to each other by, umm. Falling asleep the way that we did?” 

 

Barry’s face was crimson in a flash and his eyes widened. “I-I uh… w-what could that have been? I don’t kn-”

 

Lup’s confidence propelled her to move forward. She was  _ sure  _ that she knew what it was. Her heart was racing and the lump in her throat was irrepressible, but she was going to  _ do something.  _ She scooted her chair closer to Barry, and they faced each other, very little space between them. 

 

“So, we know that it’s definitely happened more than once, because we’ve obviously been figuring out that we’re losing memories and leaving all these clues for ourselves. Right?”    
  


Barry nervously gulped, flustered once again with Lup so close to him. He nodded. She looked directly into his eyes and didn’t break her gaze.

 

“I guess we don’t know if this memory loss happens daily or weekly or whatever, but it means that I can safely tell you.” Her voice slowed down, and her eyes dropped a bit. She traced a delicate finger from the side of Barry’s neck, down his chest, and then settled her hand against his adorably squishy side. 

  
Despite the surge of confidence, she was still hesitant, still wary.    
“It means I can tell you without possibly ruining everything. Because it’ll just be tonight. And if everything is fine… sadly, it’ll be gone later but... at least we’ll have tonight.”

 

Barry’s head pounded, the waves of heat over his face were ceaseless, the anticipation shook his entire body because  _ something was about to happen… _

 

She leaned towards him, placed her other hand on his other adorably squishy side, then let her hands slide around him, enfolding him with her arms. She leaned into him enough to be lightly pressed against his body. She set her chin on his shoulder and whispered in a breathy, small and quiet voice…

 

“I love you, Barry… Do you love me? 

 

He couldn’t believe it. There wasn’t a spot in his head where what had just happened could logically fit. That wasn’t a thing that had any possibility of happening. But there she was. There she was and she had just said that she loved him. She pulled back a bit to look at him, her eyes worried, and he saw how nervous her face was.

 

“Y-yes, fuck, I-I -- of course I love you too, gods,  _ of course I do _ , I-I-”

 

She smiled a smile that was filled with relief, elation, and -- sadness. Because it was real, after all. It was reciprocated. And it was going to be gone. 

  
  


***

 

“Wanna take our lunch to that tree we saw from the deck? Maybe a little space from the panic will help us think of something.” Before he could respond with anything more than a small nod, Lup grabbed him by the sleeve of his robe and led the way. 

 

...

 

They had woken up that morning in the lab, slumped over in their chairs. They had obviously been working hard on something, but all they had other than the multiple, seemingly unrelated tests running, was the food inventory list. And Barry’s face. They felt groggy, unrested, and confused. Sleeping in their chairs couldn’t have helped, and waking up before it was light outside was probably a result of the discomfort. They figured their first order of business was coffee and a moment out on the deck to clear their heads before digging into what was happening. When they got together with the rest of the crew, every bit of information that they pulled together only made things stranger. But, it was apparent that they had set up messages to themselves. So Barry and Lup set out to see if maybe there were other messages out there for them, or just -- anything of interest at all. 

 

...

 

“Well. Okay. So, we’ve had this same idea before.” Lup’s notebook sat at the base of the tree. Lup picked it up and thumbed through the pages, finding nothing written within, only a page that had been torn out. 

 

Barry likewise picked up his notebook, discovering the same thing. “Well. I’m pretty sure we put these here for a reason. And marked the pages we were on for a reason.” Barry looked over and saw a stick and a haphazard tangle of lines sketched into the ground, followed by tally marks, then large blank spaces, then check marks, circles, squares, blank spaces again, slashes and a variety of wiggly shapes and lines, and a couple of very Lup-like doodles of cartoonish faces. Following the line of sketches in the dirt, they found etched into the ground a partially played game of hangman. There were spaces for two four letter words followed by a five lettered word. The noose had a head, body, and one arm completed on it. And there were check marks under three of the empty spaces for letters.

 

“Okay. So scribbles. Symbols, drawings… just no letters or numbers anywhere. I think that’s what we’re trying to tell ourselves.” Barry stroked his chin, momentarily startled once again by the stubble that he kept not expecting to find there. “Or just, anything more complicated than the absolute basics gets wiped? No actual information or language stays? So. We can try to draw messages for ourselves, I guess.” Barry let out a disappointed sigh.

 

Lup set a gentle hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong, Barry?”

 

“I really suck at drawing.” 

 

...

 

Back onboard the ship, Lup and Barry shared their newfound information. They were excited. Since there were obviously no drawings in any of their notebooks or outside of the ship, it must have been a new piece of information. Everyone contributed ideas on how to use the new knowledge. One of the ideas that they came to was trying to figure out just how long they had in between losing their memories. 

 

Magnus was determined to find an answer, but kept finding things wrong. “So like… a sundial, and we mark the shadow in the ground throughout the day and -- shit, but yeah that won’t work for figuring out how long we have at night. Or, a drawing of a clock? Make a check mark by each hour?” 

 

Davenport had been mostly silent, his arms crossed, trying to come up with something. “Without the internal clock, we can’t exactly know ahead of time how fast the sun moves here -- we would need to find out how many hours are in a day here so that we can convert that time into something quantifiable for us. So, with a drawn clock and no internal clock, we would have to estimate an hour passing, but then the information probably won’t be in a context that we’ll be able to understand the next day.” 

 

Magnus thought hard, his face scrunched up and a curled hand over his mouth. After an extended silence, he perked up. “Okay, what if we go outside and draw something like, a line for the ground and then the sun and moon positions throughout the day. Have that be the first thing you see leaving at the end of the ramp outside, maybe to the left of the ramp and drawn super big so that we can also see it from the window or the deck. Then maybe we can know when things -- stop? Because we won’t be able to draw anymore?”

 

Lup looked up from the floor, interested in the idea. “Oh shit, okay yeah, like --  we’ll know ‘hey, obvi we were still out and about and doing shit when the sun set because we were able to draw this picture,’ or ‘we were still chilling when the second moon was directly overhead’ or whatever.”

 

Magnus wiggled in his seat with excitement. “Yeah! Then we’ll at least know by looking at the sky whether we’re almost done or not. Like, we won’t know hours but we’ll at least know that we still have time. And maybe figuring out when-ish things are wiped will give us some idea of what’s going on. ” 

 

Barry was smiling at Magnus. It was cool watching him hypothesize, find the holes in his plans, and then eventually come to a good idea. Maybe he should teach him some stuff in the lab. But, he was pretty sure Magnus would be bored to tears if he had to listen to him lecture. Lup was unique in how fascinating she found -- basically everything. They were the same in that way. Wanting to know the secrets of the universe and understanding that even the tiny, mundane things could get you closer to that knowledge. 

 

“I wonder if we’ve just tried like, staying awake.” Taako spoke for the first time in a while. He seemed bored; his main concern the entire day had been Lup coming back to the ship safely. Once she was there, he was immediately at her side on the couch and didn’t seem all that invested in anything else. But, apparently he had been thinking of something.

 

Lup shrugged. “I bet we have, but whatever. Taako and I can stay up easily. Oh! And if Mags is also up, updating his drawings and whatever, maybe we can see whether it hits everyone at the same time? Or, we can take over whenever he inevitably gets too tired.” 

 

Magnus shook his head. “Well, I won’t, but that all sounds cool. Let’s stay up and party! Kind of!”

 

Taako lazily fist-bumped Magnus as he got up and walked by to get started on his first sketch outside. 

 

...

 

Barry had been agonizing over a thought ever since they returned to the ship. It had been why he was so useless at their meeting earlier in the day. And basically useless ever since then as well. He walked around and went back and forth to the lab, performing random tasks, but his head was somewhere else entirely. Gods, he was the  _ worst _ . Of course their situation would be the only way that he could muster up an iota of courage. And he still wasn’t even sure if he could do it. He started pacing in the lab. He couldn’t focus on anything, couldn’t do anything, but he also couldn’t stay still. It was getting late. And they didn’t know when exactly they forgot things. They remembered their entire regeneration day, so on that day they had at least made it all the way to going to bed. But who knows how the days that they couldn’t remember turned out. Lup and him had woken up in their chairs that morning, after all. What if they passed out and forgot everything at a time that was coming up  _ soon. _ He had to,  _ had to _ just go and do it before they ran out of time. 

 

Barry reeled after his first step out of the lab doorway; he was  _ so  _ lightheaded. He braced himself against the door frame while he took several deep, slow breaths. He straightened up, did his best to blank out the noise in his mind, to fight off anticipation, and to just go and perform a simple, normal action. 

 

In the common room, Lup and Taako were sitting together on the couch. It looked like they were having a serious conversation. Lup heard someone coming into the room and when she turned around and saw Barry, she blushed. 

 

“Hey uh, Lup? Can I uh -- do you want to talk outside real quick? I-i-if I’m not interrupting you and Taako, of course, I’m sorry if I-I just did already, I-” 

 

Lup simply got up in the middle of Barry’s rambling and started to walk for the door. He wordlessly followed her. Taako resisted the overwhelming urge to immediately search for a way to eavesdrop on them. 

 

…

 

Outside, they saw that the first moon was up, spilling a soft, glowing light over the deck. Lup was illuminated under the moonlight, glowing, her hair was like spun gold; she looked celestial, like a higher being. And he was…

 

He breathed slowly and deliberately as they walked to the end of the deck. And instead of leaning onto the railing, standing next to each other and looking out over the landscape as they usually did, he turned to her so that they were facing each other, centered perfectly in the middle of the moon’s silver bath. Lup looked nervous. Damn it, he was making her nervous, making a huge deal out of talking to her. And she probably thought it was something actually important, something to do with  _ fixing  _ things. He just needed to...

 

“I -- really need to tell you something. And I know that the only way I can even get up the nerve to say this is because we’ll forget tomorrow. And because I know I wouldn’t be able to bear it if I get the response I  _ know  _ I’m going to get. It would be near impossible to live with. And I guess… I guess this way I’ll only have to live with it for, maybe a couple of hours. But at least I’ll be taking the chance. Finally. I’m just -- scared. And I’m sorry for being a coward, Lup.” He drew closer to her, making himself look up to meet her eyes, refusing to be scared, to let his eyes dart away. 

 

“Lup… do you… do you already know? I don’t feel like it’s even possible for me to keep it secret. I feel certain that I’ve given myself away a thousand times. Do you… do you know what I’m talking about?”

 

Lup looked at him shocked. She didn’t know, but the way he was talking… was it _that_? Was it what she wanted it to be? But what if she was wrong? She _had_ to be wrong. She just wanted to think it was _that_ … 

 

“I-I’m not sure that I do, Barry.”

 

He looked disappointed for a moment because it was going to be  _ so hard to say  _ but, he inhaled and steeled himself and —

 

“Lup. I-I know we won’t remember tomorrow. But even if it’s just for the rest of the night — I want you to know that having you in my life in  _ any  _ capacity is already more than I could ever have asked for. But.” He laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. 

 

“I guess I’m selfish, or pushing my luck. Or it’s the fact that it can’t be helped, I’m… helpless, Lup. I — when I look at you, I can barely remember who I am. No, it’s… I  _ can’t  _ remember who I  _ was _ before you. I-I can remember what I did and where I was but… a heart that didn’t have you in it was not one worth or -- even  _ able  _ to be remembered. I-I feel lighter around you, it’s like you’ve taken away an age old weight from inside my chest. A weight that I would have been crushed by, long ago if you hadn’t been here.”

 

He drew even closer to her, his hands trembling, his entire face red. He very gently took both of her hands and asked in a nervous whisper “is this okay?” And even though she breathlessly nodded yes, she moved her hands away and threw her entire self into his arms instead. 

 

“Barry, I --” she touched her forehead to his and they both kept their eyes closed with their arms around each other and their entire bodies were electric and weak and there was no possible way either of them could move or speak or think. So they just held on. Held on desperately to each other. Until the world stopped spinning, until their bodies softened, until their breath returned. Her hands moved up his back and to his messy head of hair, where she dug in and tangled her fingers then, surrounded the back of his head with her hands so that her thumbs ran along his ears, and she gently stroked across the edges. Their foreheads pressed together still, they tilted and the bridges of their noses met and they could feel each other’s breath on their lips.

  
  


And the universe, the thing that he had studied for his entire life, didn’t make sense anymore. The only thing that made any sense in the entirety of existence was Lup’s lips pressed against his. 

 

...

  
  


They held onto each other for what seemed like forever. When they finally let go, Barry’s chest was cold and it felt like something essential had been torn from his body. He was lost in bliss, looking at her, but then an ugly bit of reality crawled into his mind. 

 

“Oh gods, Lup --” 

 

“What is it?” 

 

“We don’t -- we don’t know how much more time we have. What if we forget in a couple hours? A couple  _ minutes? _

 

Lup smiled, looking calm, resting her hand on Barry’s face. 

 

“Barry. The important thing is that we love each other --” she interrupted herself to smile wide, still unable to believe it. “And I don’t think either of us are going to stop loving each other, do you?”

 

“No… but, Lup-”

 

“We’ll get there. If we forget tomorrow, we’ll figure it out again -- or even if we get to next year and we don’t remember… we - we  _ love _ each other, Barry. We’re bound to figure it out.”

 

“But, Lup. I - I  _ have  _ to know, I  _ have  _ to make sure this lasts. It’s not right, it’s -- how could this possibly be something that I forget? I couldn’t. I won’t.” He desperately gathered her in his arms and she nuzzled her face into his chest feeling content, glad to finally know what it felt like to be so close to him, to sink into his warmth. But his heart was racing. He was scared. Just…  _ feel her against you, loving you. This can’t go away tomorrow. It can’t.  _

 

He pulled away to look at her, settling his hands gently on her shoulders. “I think I have something… oh, Lup, give me -- fifteen minutes, and I’ll be right back to you. I think I have a way that we can be reminded… I’ve got to, I  _ have _ to try  _ something. _ ”

 

She smiled gently. “Okay, Barry. I’ve got to get to Taako, anyways.” Before leaving to go back inside, she pulled him close by the collar of his shirt for another kiss. She meant for it to be short, but how could it be? He was so soft and warm and she lost herself in him. After stopping, she opened her eyes slowly, shyly smiling at him. He was breathless, his eyes frantically looking over every detail of her face. How could he possibly  _ not  _ be glued to her side for even a second? But he had to, he had to make sure that they would remember. He caressed her cheek, and then rushed away. 

 

He turned to look back at her, panicking. “Lup. If this doesn’t work...”

 

“Well then,” she said dreamily, just -- so happy to know that she was loved by him. “Maybe in another world?” 

 

…

 

He ran as much as his body would allow him to. He knew exactly what he was going to do. 

 

Making it to the base of the tree, he grabbed a stick and used his foot to swipe away some of the drawings in the dirt, clearing room for what  _ really _ needed to be remembered. His hand shaking, he started to draw. There were joyful tears in his eyes. His heart was so full, he was  _ so  _ completely, truly happy, and he was  _ sure  _ it was going to work. And then they would know, day after day. 

 

Once he was satisfied, he dropped the stick to the ground and started to walk back. It was dark, but he could see the lights from the ship. He saw two of the bedroom lights flicker off; Lucretia’s and then Davenport’s, usually the first to go to sleep. And then the outdoor light that illuminated the ramp came on -- Magnus was probably stepping outside to make another drawing of the positions of the moons. Barry looked up; two had completely risen, and the third was just starting to emerge from the horizon beyond the valley. It seemed like they had a lot of time so far, actually. Assuming that it was the same each day. 

 

As Barry looked skyward, he heard creaking and the sound of stone grating against stone. He looked for the source of the noise and saw multiple crystalline figures milling around him. More than they had seen collectively that entire day. As slow as they were, they had somehow surrounded him in the few seconds that he took to look at the moons. And they closed in on him. 

 

***

 

Taako woke up to the sound of Lup yelling for everyone to get to the common room. He got up from the couch -- why was he asleep there? He went over to Lup, who was looking out the window, frantic, waving the crew over as they filtered into the room. 

 

Looking over Lup’s shoulder, the first thing he spotted was a pool of blood. He flinched and his ears lowered. A circle of splatters of blood surrounded the pool, and there were several areas where it looked like something had been dragged through it, creating thick trails of dark red in multiple directions. 

 

And… there was a line of drawings and symbols in the dirt next to the blood. Taako moved in closer to the window as Lup covered her face with her hands and stepped back. The drawings looked like a series of pictures showing a crude sun setting below a wavy line, then one, then two, then a third moon rising from the lines on the ground. And after the picture of the third moon just peeking up from the line, the end of the row of pictures was punctuated with the pool of blood. 

 

Taako caught Davenport out of the corner of his eye as everyone gathered around the window. His hair was grown out and wavy, his mustache accompanied by facial hair growth of at least a few months. 

 

Lup lowered her hands from her face. She inhaled shakily and looked around at the gathered crew. 

 

_ “Where are Barry and Magnus?”  _

 

Everyone turned, looking around wildly, as if they would catch sight of them somewhere in their group after looking a third and fourth time. 

 

Lup started to run to Barry’s room, calling behind her to the others, “Someone go check Magnus’s room!” 

 

She was at his door within seconds, flinging it open. She ran to the bed and threw off the crumpled covers, already knowing that he wasn’t there, but hoping... 

 

But he wasn’t. She fell to her knees, feeling immediately sure that the blood outside was his. And that it was all that was left of Barry.

...

 

There was nothing in her journals. No mention of the work that had been done so far. No indication of what day it was. Nothing to tell them how far into their year they were for  _ sure _ \-- who knows how long it took them to start setting the stones there by the garden for themselves? Months could have passed before they even thought to do that. And there was no mention of deaths… it was frustrating, but mostly just discouraging. What was her purpose in any of it? The one thing that could have really helped in that situation, a record of what had happened, she didn’t have that. Was there even a point in trying? She couldn’t decide if there was, but what else was she going to do with herself. She chronicled the entire day in as much detail as usual, despite the heavy feeling of uselessness. 

  
  


No matter how much it bothered him, Davenport didn’t shave. It was just one more of a handful of clues they had. He must have been making that decision every day. Not that he could get an exact or approximate idea of how much time had passed from his facial hair, it was just something that was an immediate and obvious clue -- it was the first thing that he noticed that morning, the first thing that told him something was wrong. And the faster they knew that something was wrong, the more time they would have to try and figure things out. Or at the very least, continue the work that they had been setting up for themselves, doing what they needed to do to survive the plane, and just waiting it out. 

 

A fearful thought crept up on him. They had no idea what amount of time happened between lapses. What if each time, they were waking up days after the last time they were conscious.  _ What would happen if they were unconscious when the Hunger came?  _ Even if it was mere hours of a loss of lucidity while the mind washing phenomenon took place, it could still end up being the exact  _ wrong  _ few hours. Or, what if they woke up the next day and two more of them were gone? Three? Everyone but one of them?  _ All _ of them?

 

Merle’s garden had mostly been harvested at that point; there were a few more things that could have been picked soon, but Davenport put a ban on leaving the ship. That was it. Figuring out what was happening, continuing to do any work that they had set up outside -- that was all secondary to simply waiting and surviving. He handed Lup a roll of red tape and they stuck multiple lines of bright red over the doors to outside; both the ramp and the deck. Afterward, Lup taped off Barry’s and Magnus’s bedroom doors -- she didn’t want to subject herself to the pain of frantically searching their rooms and every corner of the ship each day. At least that sent a clear message. They were gone, and there was no point in looking.

 

Lucretia sat at the dining table, ready to write down everything she could in her journal, even though she was sure that it was pointless. As she grabbed her pencil, she noticed the irritated callus on her finger. She had been writing furiously every day. And she had nothing. Davenport sat down at the table across from her, seeing the lost look in her eyes. 

 

“Why don’t you try drawing something?” She looked up at the sound of Davenport’s voice. 

 

“Oh, right. There were drawings outside. I… I don’t know exactly how to capture everything in drawings, but I’ll try.” 

 

Davenport smiled for the first time that day. “I’m sure you’ll do great, Lucretia.” 

 

***

 

Lup was jarred awake. It was still dark out. She felt sore all over even though they had only gotten there the day before, and her and Barry hadn’t even done a whole lot of work yet. They just grabbed some stuff from their immediate surroundings, labeled the specimens, and then set them aside for testing later. It was customary for them to only get the basics done on the first day, then they would spend a while all together, just being close, before getting some good rest in. 

 

She rubbed her eyes, stretched, and contemplated what to do. No point in trying to sleep anymore; she felt rested enough. Besides, she might catch Barry out on the deck. Her heart quickened at the thought. She laughed at herself, thinking that maybe if she went and made coffee first, it would wake him up and coax him out of his room. But, she knew he needed rest more than her. If he was restless, she’d see him out on the deck, and if he wasn’t she would see him later in the day. Either way, she just couldn’t wait to see him. She got up and stepped out of the room, leaving behind the still completely passed-out Taako. On her way down the hallway, she walked past Barry’s door. And noticed something strange. Multiple lines of red tape, blocking off his door. She immediately felt sick to her stomach. What did it mean.  _ What did that mean? _

 

She wanted to rip it off, rush into his room, see his face, make sure everything was okay -- but she knew that was irresponsible. She woke up Taako and went to gather the rest of the crew. Except for Magnus, whose door was also taped off. 

 

“A-are they quarantined? I mean -- what the fuck, I don’t remember anything happening, I don’t remember them getting their doors taped off…” Lup led the way as they all walked down the hall to the common room to gather themselves and talk things out. When they entered, they saw the doors to the outside similarly taped off.

 

“Yeah so, I fucking hate this so far?” Taako narrowed his eyes, his ears twitched, and he moved closer to Lup. He didn’t feel like things were safe. And he wasn’t about to lose her. 

 

Merle immediately went to the window and pressed his face and hands up against it. Then, he turned to the crew, shock written all over his expression, and silently waved them over. 

 

They stood gathered at the window, arms around each other, trying to decode what the gory sight outside meant. They were scared, confused, disoriented. They  _ just  _ got there yesterday; how and when had all of these things happened? 

 

And then, they heard a familiar, thunderous crash outside -- the Hunger was there. Somehow, it was time, even though the last thing they remembered before waking up that morning was arriving the day before. Bewildered, Davenport ran to the cockpit. 

 

“W-we’re going! Get ready!” 

 

...

 

They barely made it out on time; Davenport skillfully circumvented the falling pillars, weaving the flashing silver ship between each inky black, oozing column. They watched out the windows as the color was sucked from the planet below them while long tendrils and blackened figures emerged from where the Hunger met the ground. They barely even knew what was there on that plane -- they had just gotten there the day before, and they obviously didn’t have the light. So, they left knowing that the plane was actively being consumed. And on that plane that was about to no longer exist -- 

 

On that particular plane,  _ the only one  _ _ exactly _ _ like it in all of existence _ , there was a tree with a couple of empty bottles, an unintentionally forgotten scarf, and two empty notebooks at its base; notebooks that had repeatedly, desperately tried to preserve a single idea that they just couldn’t hold on to. So, they had been given up on. Also at the base of that tree was a stick that had been used to scratch something into the dirt. And in the dirt was a drawing… a stick figure with long, pointed ears and flowing hair. And another stick figure with big, square glasses. And their hands were touching. And they were encircled by a heart drawn around them. And it was the only drawing  _ exactly _ _ like that in all of existence.  _

 

And then it was gone.

  
  
  
  



	25. You’ve Forgotten Who that Weight Belongs to

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Twenty Five

 

“That was a fucking weird one, huh?” Lup ripped the last of the red tape off of the door to the deck just as Barry was walking up to help.

 

“Yeah, I’m uh. Still pretty bothered that I don’t remember how I died. Or, probably died I guess, since I don’t remember the Hunger arriving.”

 

“Well, at least I didn’t have to miss you for long.” Lup smiled as she balled up the tape and left to throw it away. Taako got up from the couch and followed her. He hadn’t been in a different room than her since their regen.

 

She wanted to talk to Barry more. She felt bad for just kind of -- walking out on him when he was obviously approaching her not _just_ to help with tape. There just was … something. Something making her feel hollowed out inside. There were a lot of important things to sort through, but it was hard to focus. Her energy was gone and she felt despondent. But, she would have to deal with those feelings later.

  


Lup went over and over the timeline in her head.

 

She remembered the storms and the nightmares. She remembered being crushed under the heavy realization that she deeply loved Barry. And then there were nightmares that were painful, that actually, physically hurt. She remembered the regeneration day after the nightmares. She had been dreaming one moment, and then awake in the Starblaster common room the next.

 

Then, she remembered being welcomed by the crew, having dinner, talking, going to sleep.

 

Then, she was awake, looking for Barry, wanting to see Barry, and instead found red tape across his door. Then they saw a pool of blood out the window. And then they heard the Hunger, and Davenport got them out of there.

 

She remembered how confused she was when she regenerated the first time, after her nightmares. Did something kill her while she was sleeping? After everyone welcomed the dead back, which apparently included Barry and Davenport too, she ran off with Taako to their bedroom. He was in pieces. He told her how she had been aggressive towards him before dying, but she could barely remember anything from just before she died except for the dreams. And… she remembered the thing about Barry. Other than that, the days didn’t seem to exist. Only the painful nights. And then, Taako was the one who found her dead from a nightmare. And had to burn her body. Her heart was ripped up; he had gone through so much, and she hadn’t been there for him. Even worse, everything he went through was because of her.

 

The crew collectively came to terms with it most likely being memory loss, and not just that the Hunger was starting to come within a day of them landing like they had momentarily feared -- they had gone through a good chunk of their resources, some of it replaced by new things, and the obvious, kind of excessive mess around the common room signaled to them that more time had passed than they could remember.

 

When they checked Lucretia’s journals, only the beginning handful of pages were filled in; the rest of the journal was empty. And the filled in pages had been written on over and over again, so that the words weren’t legible and almost the entirety of the pages were filled with ink. Only a couple of the pages after the completely blacked out ones had less words on them; still too many words written out on top of each other to make out much, though, except that a couple looked like they also had something drawn on them. .

 

Barry and Lup were greeted by a mess in the lab -- they usually cleaned and packed everything up within the last few days of each year, but it had all been left out. Some equipment had even fallen on the floor, probably during their hurried takeoff at the arrival of the Hunger. After cleaning up broken glass and sanitizing and storing their equipment, they took inventory of the rest of the lab and noticed that two of their new notebooks were gone. Their next discovery was that they each had a crumpled piece of paper in their robe pockets -- Lup’s said ‘Yo, fuck this place’ on it and Barry’s read ‘testing, testing’ and then listed the alphabet and numbers one through ten.

 

***

 

The dreams that Barry had during the storm year were still fresh. He remembered needing Lup so badly that when she died, he died. He died from the mere need of her presence being amplified a thousandfold through intensely emotional dreams. And he hadn’t gotten the chance to see her alone at all since he died. Taako was attached to her at the hip -- he couldn’t leave her, even when her and Barry were cleaning the lab and collecting samples. Taako complained about it being boring and dirty, but he was still constantly at her side.

 

Barry wanted to be near her so badly. His emotions were still high and she felt like his link to life. For a long time already, he had felt like she was the sun; everything that she did was so vibrant and sparkling and vital. But then after those dreams rubbing his emotions raw, he felt like she was the air, too. There was a pressure, a heaviness in his chest that felt like if he didn’t see her or hear her, he was going to suffocate under the weight of it.

 

It didn’t help at all that in their new plane, the first and most obvious thing they noticed was the gravity. It wasn’t so much that it was impossible to move, it just made things slower, more difficult. Heavier.

 

***

 

Lup was having a hard time being around Barry. Probably because of the dreams. She had the lingering feeling that if she were near him, something bad was going to happen to him. All of her nightmares told her that. And then, on that morning before the Hunger came, she woke up wanting so badly to see him, and he was just… gone. Nothing but red tape on his door. And that feeling of losing him, of maybe even being the cause of him being gone, flared up wildly and wasn’t going away.

 

And there was something else. A hole. A feeling that she couldn’t grab on to. The overwhelming sensation of having forgotten something important, something that felt like it was on the tip of her tongue, an itch at the back of her brain. But it wasn’t coming to her. There wasn’t even a vague idea of what it was, just that it was _something._ And looking at or hearing Barry and especially being _near_ Barry made that feeling almost unbearable.

 

She took her frustration outside but was only frustrated all over again when she remembered the damn gravity on that world. She wanted to run over to the deep ditch they saw earlier and flood it with fire. She needed more practice, anyways. She had picked up new knowledge and new tactics to try from the alien tomes she read during their time working in the library.

 

She slowly trudged along instead of setting loose and running like she wanted to. It didn’t matter. Either way she was going to go completely destroy a pit of dirt and rock.

 

***

 

When Davenport entered the common room that evening to spend some time around everyone before dinner, he stopped in the doorway at the sight of blankets hanging from the ceiling and draped over both sides of the circular couch. He heard the sound of giggling and then Taako’s voice-

 

“Okay, I hear what you’re saying, but listen to this -- what if we flip the table over?”

 

Davenport slowly approached the hanging blankets, and then pulled one aside to peek in.

“Ca...can I come in?”

Taako flailed his arms excitedly. “Oh fuck yeah! It’s Dancin’Port! Get your ass in here!”

Davenport let out an exasperated sigh. One night during their beach year, he had gotten drunk enough to get talked into dancing with Merle around the fire… and had been bestowed with a new name because of it.

He came in as they were flipping the coffee table over and then draping a blanket over the upturned leg posts. As Davenport stood inside, watching what they were doing, Magnus looked up at his questioning face.

“It’s a fort in a fort!” Magnus seemed proud as he held his hands out, presenting their creation. Merle crawled into the new fort, wiggling into the space between the underside of the table and the blanket. When he sat up, there was a bump from his head in the blanket; he was just slightly too tall for the ceiling of the tent.

Taako shot a finger up into the air. “We need extenders!” Merle and Magnus echoed him, “Extenders!”

Taako swiveled to face Davenport. “Dancin’Port, what ideas you got? It is _extremely_ important that this tent be big enough for Merle.”

Davenport looked even more confused. “Is it?”

Taako and Magnus stared him down.

“Okay! Hmm. What about... a glass upside down over the top of the legs? And then you can stack as many other glasses as you need upside down over that?”

“Genius!” Taako gesticulated widely. “This is why you’re the captain!”

“The captain of dance!” Merle shouted from inside his small fort.

“The captain of dance!” Lucretia’s voice echoed from -- somewhere.

“Lucretia’s in here?” Davenport looked around.

Taako waved a dismissive hand. “She’s in the VIP room behind the pillow wall, don’t worry about it, darling.”

***

Barry hadn’t felt like socializing. He made up something about needing more of some specimen of plant that they had found a ways out. But really, he just wanted to be alone. He couldn’t fake being happy, and he didn’t want to bring them down. He checked in with Davenport via stone periodically anyways, following protocol, not wanting anyone to worry.

Lup walked into the kitchen, looking for Barry after not finding him in the lab as she expected. She ran into Magnus instead, grabbing armfuls of glasses.

“Thirsty, huh?”

“No, we just need to make our second blanket fort taller.”

Lup had been out on the deck when Taako decided to lead the effort in making a blanket fort. As much as it would have normally been a shenanigan that she would love, she just wasn’t in a great head-space. And Taako wasn’t about to make her do anything she didn’t want to. As long as she was safe and nearby, he was happy.

Before Magnus left with his bounty of glasses, Lup asked him if he knew where Barry was.

“Oh yeah, he’s been popping up on Davenport’s stone, I guess he’s out somewhere looking for more of -- something? I don’t really know, but he’s not on the ship.”

Lup frowned. “Okay, cool, thanks.” Magnus ran off, too eager to get back to the task at hand to notice the atmosphere surrounding Lup.

She couldn’t tell if she was irritated or worried, or both. She _was_ having a hard time being around him, sure, but he just went off to do work without her? But… obviously that was something that was completely within his right to do, and her being upset about that was totally unjustifiable. And... she wasn’t really upset about that, anyways. It was just unusual. So, maybe she was more on the worried side. It wasn’t like him to not even ask her to join him in working on something if she was around and available. And besides, again, she was the one having a hard time being around him. He had probably picked up on that -- actually, that must have been it. Of course he would be able to tell if her mood was sour, and Barry being Barry, he probably took it on himself to try and predict her needs and assumed that would include staying out of her hair.

She didn’t want to join the others. She didn’t want to work in the lab by herself. She wasn’t going to go searching for Barry if he had intentionally gone out on his own. Only option left was to get in some more blasting practice. So, she headed outside.

She had always been powerful, but with all of her practice and new knowledge, and changing up her creativity in her approach -- it was paying off. She was definitely becoming noticeably more formidable. She arrived back at the pit that she had been using as a safe place to practice letting her power loose. It was already charred, and the rocks that were once at the bottom were pulverized into dust. She positioned her hands so that it looked like she was holding a globe from the top and bottom of it. She gathered flame and heat out of thin air and it ballooned in between her hands until she twisted them clockwise and whipped them out in front of her, unleashing a dense ball of fire followed by a stream of white-hot flame. The echoing boom that it made as it crashed into the bottom of the pit and reverberated along the walls of stone and dirt was deafening. And, she realized that it was probably pretty alarming to the crew inside -- she hadn’t told them she was going out to practice, and she hadn’t brought anything with her, including her stone, so she couldn’t tell them that it was just her. Best bet she had was if Taako recognized the noise as being her practicing and could tell the others, but she turned to head back anyways.

But, as she turned, there was another booming noise; not from her magic. It was much louder, and it came from everywhere and was followed by the sound of cracking stone and shifting dirt. And the terrain around her started to shake, slowly at first, and then violently. Cracks started to form under her feet and the dry topsoil spilled through those cracks as everything shook.

On board the Starblaster, they all stopped dead when they heard the first noise. Taako was about to open his mouth to say that the sound very likely was Lup, but then there was another, world-shattering noise followed by the ship rocking back and forth violently. That definitely was not Lup. Davenport ran to the cockpit. From the windows they could see dirt and rock jumping into the air from the force of the shaking. Taako heard the slow, upward hum of the ship engine and he panicked, running to where Davenport stood at the wheel.

“What the hell are you doing? We don’t have everyone!”

“Taako, it doesn’t matter, look outside!”

The ground was splitting open around them and shifting, and the ship was teetering on a ledge that had started rising from the ground, threatened by a taller ledge near it that looked like it was tipping towards them, about to crush them. Davenport was already lifting off and steering the ship away just as Taako caught sight of Lup, grasping the edge of a ruptured piece of ground, slanted at a treacherous angle. She was about to fall into the quaking nothingness underneath the broken ground and Taako could only watch the image of her disappear as they ascended.

But the very last thing that the crew was able to see as they huddled around the window, holding onto each other for balance while the ship lurched in the air and zipped away, were impossibly large glowing eyes emerging from under the fractured and broken hill. There was -- _something_ with a jagged, razored back that stood up and shook itself side to side in slow motion, cascades of rock and dirt falling from it.

***

Barry’s eyes opened. He was lying on his back, and his entire body was wracked with pain. He stayed still for a moment, trying to tell if there was anything broken. He slowly sat up and felt blood spill down his face as he did. He felt around and found a sizable wound below his hairline -- it didn’t feel great, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. He was banged up pretty much all over, but didn’t seem to have anything broken. Fucking lucky. But, he was missing his pack -- his stone. He looked around and saw rubble everywhere; overturned plants, rocks split in half, the ground torn up and shattered with cracks. Then he heard a loud boom. And he saw a massive creature, almost turtle like and covered in curled spikes. It was moving out from the center of the destruction, having just finished lifting itself out of the ground, causing smaller earthquakes with each step.

 

He got up slowly, ready to start making his way through the rubble in the opposite direction of the thing. As far off as he had walked before the quake, he was definitely still not far enough away from it. He tried to time his walking with the steps of the creature -- crouching and stabilizing himself every time it took another slow step causing the ground to shake. And then he realized -- he was walking normally. The gravity was closer to what they were used to. So the pull had been from the creature itself?

 

Putting some more distance between him and the site, he found a place with a slope to a high up rocky ledge. From the top, he looked over the rubble and didn’t see the Starblaster anywhere.

 

Had they escaped? Or was the ship buried somewhere, crushed? Was he the only one alive? Was he going to die there, slowly... And never come back to life. Never see any of them ever again. Was that really going to be what finally ended them?

 

He didn’t know where he was headed or what he was going to do. He decided to just wait until the towering creature was gone, and then he was going to look through the rubble. See if he could find the ship. See if anyone had survived.

 

***

Lup had her back up against a rock, trembling. _What the fuck was that thing?_ They had the ship on top of it the whole time and… was it her fault that it woke up? She blasted and destroyed the bottom of the ditch deep enough where it could feel or hear her fire? Fuck fuck _fuck._

It was all her fault.

 

At least she had seen the ship get away safely. But -- Taako. Gods, no… she had no way of telling him that she was alive and had no way of finding them. She thought about his face, his voice, how he was going to look at her when they regenerated. His heart…

 

She already couldn’t take it. But there was nothing to do. Nothing to do but to get up, start walking, figure out how to survive. It was getting dark, and would remain dark for sixteen hours, and she didn’t have food or water or shelter. Thank the gods that she knew enough transmutation from Taako that she could create water. But she didn’t have a container to put any in. It would have to be a hole in the ground. Great.

 

She hesitated about whether or not to start a fire; she was pretty shaken about the attention her fire magic had just brought. But what if they came back to look for her? If she kept a fire going, they might spot her. Or what if -- what if Barry was somehow still alive? She didn’t know how far he had gone on his walk. But she was sure that it probably wasn’t far enough.

 

She found a sharp, broken incline of land that was disturbed by the emergence of the beast. She set up all of the brush and sticks she could find at the small flat space at the top of it. At least if she were high up and they did fly overhead, they would see her. So, she set a fire. Her body was sore, beaten, bruised, tired. But there was no way that she could rest. She just stared into the fire and became lost in thought.

***

As the ship flew, the surviving members of the crew saw below that the hills all around were the same size and height as the one they had landed on. They took that to mean that there wasn’t just one behemoth beast out there. They continued to fly until the hills were less frequent. And then they were over a forest -- a thin forest with scraggly trees, brown, dead. And through the roof of that sparse forest as they flew over it, they saw a brilliant beam of light. And the mechanical arm that Magnus had installed on the ship came in handy once again.

...

“Well. That was kind of strangely easy.” Davenport landed them in a fairly safe looking clearing past the forest once they had done a drive-by and scooped up the light from in between the withered trees. Then, just like that, they had it in front of them in the common room, covered by a blanket in an open box.

Davenport uncovered the box, and the light flooded the room. He exhaled, frustrated. “Of _course_ we would find it when we don’t have our science officer.”

Taako sneered. “Wow, Dav, that really what you’re concerned about right now? Were you even there during what just happened? Or is that why you don’t want to go back for Lup. She no use to you right now?”

Davenport shook his head and looked to the ground. “...I shouldn’t have said that. Of course I want them back. It was just an observation. And you know I need to look at this stuff in a calculated way, and I just get caught u-”

“Alright, well maybe keep the part where you reduce us to our utility to yourself.”

“Taako, I -- that’s not fair, you know that I --”

But Taako had already begun to storm off.

Magnus, Merle and Lucretia sat on the couch, silently.

Davenport pinched the bridge of his nose. “You were all there… you saw her when we left. I’m sorry, but it didn’t look like she was in a position that was going to turn out any good.”

“We know. We trust your judgement.” Lucretia looked at Davenport and gave him a reassuring nod. “You do what you have to. Emotions don’t always have a part in this.”

Magnus held his head in both of his hands as he hunched over looking at the floor. “I-if you could just drop me off a little close by -- I could go look…”

Merle perked up. “I would go, too. I’m sure my expertise would come in handy in a rescue mission.”

Davenport shook his head. “Magnus, Merle, no. We need you here. If we send you out there, we won’t accomplish anything other than losing you, too.”

Magnus looked dolefully towards the hallway door that Taako had just angrily left through. “We could fly over and look?”

Davenport sighed; he was getting near the end of his patience. “Magnus -- we can’t get them on their stones, the ground caved in around us and a literal giant monster crawled out; I can say pretty certainly that there isn’t anyone out there to save. We, on the other hand, are safe and we have the light. And the best thing we can do for them is to make sure we leave here safely so that we can get them back.”

Davenport was exhausted. He was sure that he was doing what was best, but everyone was going to be upset with him over it. He didn’t want to be the bad guy, but how could they not see that he was just being reasonable? He wasn’t being malicious, he didn’t _want_ to leave anyone behind -- of _course_ he wanted everyone together and safe and happy. But, if that meant having to wait until regen to have everyone back together, then why not just wait rather than risk _everyone?_

…

Davenport ended up in his office with the light, alone. He assumed that maybe it would be better for him not to be at dinner. To give the crew space and a little time to mourn, time to come to terms with his decision. He was right. He _knew_ he was right. And he wasn’t going to waver. Being likable, being one of the crew, being relatable -- no matter how much he wanted and enjoyed all of those thing, they were secondary to getting them all out at the end of each year. He needed to never lose sight of that.

He looked over the edge of the box and into the lustrous light. The center of the glowing ball drew his eye, and he found himself staring deeply into it. They had it, so the plane presumably wouldn’t be destroyed. But they still needed to figure out so much about it. It couldn’t hurt for him to give it a look over. Maybe it wasn’t a scientific touch that would unlock it; maybe anyone could make an important observation about it. His vision tunneled and focused on it and only on it and it didn’t let go of his eyes.

***

 

Barry walked for hours, not knowing where he was walking to or what he was looking for. Shelter? Food? Water? It seemed unlikely that he would find any of those things in piles of upturned dirt and rocks. He was limping, everything hurt, and he almost definitely had a concussion. He was starting to feel cold. He was out of endorphins and was trembling from the pain. Why was he even walking. What was he hoping to find?

 

But then he remembered… if the ship was under the rubble somewhere, maybe there would be some of the crew alive, needing help. Maybe Lup needed him. For what, he didn’t know. But it kept him walking, moving through the pain. By gritting his teeth, furrowing his brow, and telling himself to just keep fucking going _keep fucking going,_ he made it a lot farther than he probably should have been able to. But there was only so much that pure force of will and determination could do with a broken body. He paused, set his hand against a cracked boulder, hoping that if he just took a minute, he would be able to press on. It was getting dark. He couldn’t stop shaking.

  


But then, he saw the light of a fire.

 

It had to be them. It was either them or something that was probably going to kill him. Either way, even though it wasn’t far, he wasn’t entirely sure that he could make it. He tried to yell, but his voice was hoarse and he could barely get anything out. He remembered a spell that Taako had shown him that he could use to send a message to someone. They couldn’t be too far away though, and he had to actually be able to see the target. If he could get a little closer, maybe he would be able to see a silhouette by the fire.

But he was so tired. And he felt his knees giving out, even while balancing himself against the boulder. He looked at the ground under his feet and thought that there weren’t _too_ many bits of rock there… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to lie down.

He shook his head, harshly patted himself against the side of his face, waking himself up. If he lied down, he was dead, but there was no way that he could walk either. He still had a fair amount of strength left in his arms, though. So, he was going to fucking crawl. There was no way that he was going to die if there was even the smallest chance of any of his family being alive.

…

Lup sat by the fire, her gaze unfocused, face flat. There wasn’t anything she could do to help… anyone. Not her brother. Not Barry. Not her family. All she could do was sit there and stare at a fire and drink water from a hole.

But maybe there was something. She was either going to end up signalling them, or attracting who knows what to where she was. But she was going to do it. She unleashed a scattershot of dazzling, crackling bits of flame into the sky. She decided to wait a moment and send another -- maybe eventually see how long she could keep a single stream of fire going straight into the air. And if there was nothing, she would just have to do it the next night. What else could be done?

As the last bits of her explosive display sizzled and died, she heard something. Whispering that sounded like it was right next to her. It was Barry’s voice. She turned all around until she realized that he was sending a message and wasn’t actually there. His voice told her that he wasn’t far from her fire. That he was downhill from the jagged side of the ledge she was on, by a large rock formation that had been split down the middle. That he would wait there. She jumped to her feet and ran, down the slope of the ledge, to Barry.

**…**

Her heart broke when she saw him. He was sprawled out in the dirt, propping his head up with an elbow anchored into the ground, his hand covering his face, but not enough that she couldn’t see the alarming head wound just below his hairline. His robe was in tatters and he was covered in dirt. She darted over to him and fell to his side and at the sound, he uncovered his face and looked up from his hand at her.

 **“** Oh Lup, thank fuck you’re alive,” were the only words he was able to say before he let his head drop to the ground as his body finally gave out.

…

Lup got him back to the fire and had him sitting up and lucid. She had torn off part of her robe and was cleaning his wounds as best as she could.

“Lup, if you can, I need you to keep me awake, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a concussion or ten.”

She exhaled with almost a laugh to try and match his mood that was somehow still at least a little bit lighthearted. But she wasn’t able to get past how bad Barry looked. At his behest, she traced a finger along his forehead and cauterized his wound for him. It had to have fucking hurt, but Barry was too exhausted to care much. He sharply inhaled through his teeth and that was it. She kept him propped up by the fire, sitting behind him, holding him up, talking to him constantly, petting his head.

“How long do you need to stay awake for, Barry?”

“Just got to make sure I’m lucid-ish, and that I don’t start throwing up. Then I could probably sleep for a couple hours, but I’ll need to wake up frequently and make sure I’m still not too messed up. That’s gonna be the hardest part. I feel like as soon as I pass out, I’m gonna be out for years.”

“Well, I’ll make sure you wake up, even if I have to pry your eyes open myself.”

She put her arms around him a little bit tighter as she held him up. She could feel him shaking, his breathing staggered. She wished that she would have been with him. He was so much worse from having to walk, having to _drag_ himself. Gods, poor Barry. But damn, was he strong. He was in no condition to move, let alone walk miles. He must have really pushed himself.

She started thinking about when she first met him to when she first started working with him, to when she first started to really notice him, respect him, be surprised by him. And when she started to cherish him. When he started to mean so much to her. And how often she was still surprised by him.

Honestly, from the outside he looked like the most boring, average person. And that only made him more amazing in a way; he wasn’t concerned about being seen, he wasn’t arrogant, he wasn’t even fully aware of his own talent and strength. He was just unabashedly, unquestionably _him._ He was the type of person that you started to slowly see differently, rather than be impressed by some initial appearance. Most people she had ever been into were like that; interesting at first, flashy, cool, the type to catch your eye. And from there, it was a process of learning what a disappointment they were. But everything wonderful about Barry came out slowly, had to be discovered. And she had enjoyed that process, and loved that it was a never ending one.

With the way that she had always felt a sharp decline of interest with other people, she had almost started to think that there was something wrong with her. She resigned herself early on to never finding someone who could actually be a partner. She thought that any relationship she might ever have would be a strained and doomed one where the other person cared about her more than she could care about them, more interested in her than her in them. And that made her feel awful. Callous. Conceited. But it was just that -- that she had never met someone like Barry. And then she did. And she couldn’t do anything about it. She held onto him tighter and hoped against hope that he wasn’t going to die on her that night.

…

It was the third time she woke him up. She had been watching over him in his sleep diligently, hooked on every breath he took, listening to make sure he was still alive. And every time she got to wake him up, she wanted him to stay up, to talk to him, to see him smile or at least to see him not grimace in pain for a few moments. But, she had to let him rest. A lot.

That third time, he seemed a bit more awake, a bit more able to talk. And he very lightly smiled out of the corner of his mouth when he looked at her. He hated all of the trouble that he was putting her through. She was so kind and gentle and -- he could see the worry in her eyes as she put her hand on his to comfort him. Then, she helped him drink water by scooping it up and putting her cupped hands against his lips. He felt all at once so cared for and humbled that someone like herwould be helping him drink, keeping him alive, comforting him. He was so broken and emotional and almost felt like weeping, but was exhausted past the point of his body being able to do anything. She gently helped him lie back down, and told him she’d wake him up again soon. She talked him to sleep, and her soft, concerned voice turned into a subconscious stream of white noise that filled his tired mind.

…

It wasn’t long before Barry had mostly recovered; enough to be awake for longer periods of time and able to walk. He was in good spirits right away; Lup was alive and with him, and she had told him that the ship was able to safely get away. That was all he needed. Everyone was going to be okay.

As Barry and Lup cautiously traversed the wasteland that had been left in the beast’s wake, foraging scant handfuls of berries and roots, they talked about their favorite parts of years past. And the conversation mostly boiled down to their favorite things that they did together.

“You know, we haven’t done a lot of longer excursions or camping trips in a while.”

“Yeah, that’s true -- I really like those a lot-” Barry stopped himself before he let on too much. “I mean, this is kind of like one, right?”

Lup looked over at Barry with a grin and silent laugh, “Yeah, but this one sucks. Let’s do an actual fun one soon, yeah?”

Barry smiled warmly. “Yeah, let’s.”

Lup was silent for a bit and Barry tensed.

“Barry. I think the earthquake was my fault.”

He shook his head in confusion. “How -- how could that even be possible, Lup?”

“You know how I was using that ditch for practice? Well, right before the earthquake, I went kind of especially hard at it.”

Barry thought for a moment. “And you think that woke it up?”

“Yeah.” Lup silently looked at the ground as she walked. Barry stopped her with a hand on the shoulder and she looked up at him.

“Lup. It doesn’t matter what you did. There was no way for you to know that would happen.”

“It doesn’t matter if I knew or not. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been so frustrated.”

“Frustrated?”

Lup turned away from Barry and started walking again. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll stop beating myself up here soon. It just sucked, but I guess we’re all fine and not _dead_ -dead, so it’s gonna be okay.”

Barry worried over what she meant, but continued to walk with her and decided to let it go.

They had been walking in the direction that Lup saw the Starblaster take off in, but there wasn’t much hope in doing that. There was no way to know how far they went or what other directions they may have turned before landing somewhere new. As the sun began to set and they needed to consider where they would be sleeping and where to set a fire, Lup started to contemplate the point of what they were doing.

“Hey, what if we just -- didn’t?”

Barry looked at her, confused. “Didn’t what?”

“This. Walking for miles and miles when we know it’s pointless. Besides, I’m pretty sure that next hill in the distance looks suspiciously like the first one we were on. If I were a bettin’ woman, I’d say that’s another whole hill of similar bullshit, and I’d rather avoid it. So.” Lup looked around, surveying the landscape until something caught her eye. “There’s that grassy little cliff that we saw when we flew over that way. Let’s just -- hang out, yeah? There isn’t a whole lot of time left, anyways. We can still try to signal them at night, but y’know -- what the hell else can we really do?”

Barry smiled and shrugged. Goofing off doing nothing on a grassy hill with Lup for a few weeks sounded amazing. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

***

They could hear and see the signs as they stood on the deck. The Hunger was almost on them. And Davenport wasn’t with them, and he wasn’t in the common room as they rushed inside. And the ship wasn’t starting up. Merle kept calling around the room and moved into the kitchen as Taako, Lucretia, and Magnus ran to find Davenport. He wasn’t in his room and then -- his office door was locked. They banged on the door, calling for him, telling him that it was time to go, the Hunger was there. There was no answer.

They moved aside so that Magnus could get a running start and he threw himself into the door, busting it open. Taako stepped over the fallen door and stormed into the office.

“What in the everloving fuck, Dav? Are you--” They all stopped short as they saw him in his chair behind his desk, clutching the box with the light in it.

Taako turned slowly to Lucretia, tapped her shoulder and spoke to her quietly. “Go. Get us out of here.”

Davenport jumped up. “Wait! What if we don’t go?”

“What do you mean?” Magnus was rubbing at the shoulder that he had used to bust down the door. “Why wouldn’t we?”

Taako set a hand on Magnus’s other shoulder, cautiously regarding Davenport and subtly shooing away Lucretia with his other hand.

Davenport drew further away from them on the other side of his desk. “If we go, the light will be gone and w-what… what if we could do something about the Hunger with it maybe? We haven’t tried! But we shouldn’t -- we shouldn’t let go of the light, don’t you think? We don’t always get it every year and maybe it’s the answer, right? That makes sense?”

And then the whir of the engine started and his eyes grew wide. “No! No, we have to stay here! Or else the light will be gone!”

His hand already on his shoulder, Taako pushed Magnus to his right while he moved to the left just as Davenport tried to dash away from behind his desk. He ended up caught in Magnus’s arms and Taako stepped over to forcefully grab the box from Davenport. He whipped off his robe and covered the box. His lips drawn tight, he looked at Davenport with contempt. With the glow of the light snuffed out, Davenport still felt the traces of a feral want and need for the light, but much more clearly and pressingly, he was able to see Taako’s face, and it was like a punch to the gut.

***

Lup and Barry’s days had been peaceful and lazy. Thanks to their tests earlier in the year, they knew exactly what to forage for and eat safely. It wasn’t the best, but it kept them alive, and everything else was perfect —aside from the gnawing worry in the back of Lup’s head about Taako.

 

They talked about things they needed to do and theories on the light and the Hunger, using the time and distance from work and everyone to focus solely on talking things out. But they were also able to talk for an uninterrupted amount of time about things that weren’t work related; more than they had ever been able to in the lab when waiting on results, more than they had ever been able to on the deck in the early mornings. Enough for Barry to accidentally admit that he learned to swim because of her.

 

“That’s -- wait, why?”

 

Shit. Why did he have to… “B-because -- you’re just so competent and uh, multi-talented, and sometimes I feel like a drag or a burden and we work so much together and I just want to be able to keep up-” he stopped himself before he could ramble anymore. That was enough. He had already said too much. And then, Lup’s face turned serious. _Dammit._

 

“Barry. I have never _once_ felt like you were a burden. Just because you can’t do something physical doesn’t make you -” she sighed, almost exasperated with him. When was he going to get it? That he was _amazing?_

“I mean, you are the most intelligent person I have ever met; you don’t really have to be able to do anything else. But, you are able to and you do! And you’re even trying to do more. You should be proud of yourself.”

 

He smiled, but he couldn’t look at her. She set a hand on his shoulder, but then quickly withdrew it.

 

“Wait -- in the robot cycle, you said you couldn’t go with us because of an ear-thing, not because you couldn’t swim.”

 

Barry rubbed the back of his neck and made himself look up at Lup. “Yeah, I uh - I guess I lied.”

 

Lup gasped and held a hand to her heart. “I am scandalized! _My_ Barold? A _liar?_ What other dark secrets are you hiding, hmm?”

 

They both laughed together, but Barry abruptly stopped and stared off into the middle distance. There was one, huge, unspeakable secret that he had. And once that thought came to mind, he felt the wind knocked out of him. He didn’t feel like he could joke anymore. He almost felt like it could be considered a sign, if he believed in that sort of thing. It was definitely an opening. Maybe -- maybe he should just get it over with. Come clean. Because, how many lies did he have to tell already and how many more lies would he have to tell in order to hide his feelings?

 

Lup noticed how serious Barry became and raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like Barry to just mentally check out when they were talking and laughing. Was there actually something else that he was hiding?

 

But she couldn’t wonder about that anymore. Because just then, the sky cracked open and the ground shook under them as a massive banging sound that started like a pop and ended like it was being sucked backwards into a vacuum rang out -- the Hunger was there

 

“Well, shit.” Lup looked over at Barry, whose mouth was silently hanging open because he had just been saved from saying something stupid by the literal beginning of the apocalypse.

  


Lup took Barry’s hand. “Wanna watch the world end together?”

 

...

 

As they sat at the edge of the grassy cliff, watching the sky rapidly turn dark from the onset of the Hunger, they saw a dashing, silver wisp spiral through the air -- they made it. Everything was going to be okay. All they had to do was sit there and wait.

 

They watched as the color gradually left the landscape set out in front of them, and they saw the first few slow motion pillars descend in the distance. As the pillars moved towards the surface of the planet, little black bits fell off and formed droplets that floated back upward into the mass of the cloud. Lup put her head on Barry’s shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her, and they were perfectly calm. Together, rather than watching a sunset or sunrise, they were watching the end of the world. Who else had ever been able to do that?

 

They lied back onto the grass, his arm still around her, and watched as the cloud passed over them, blocking out the sun. The only light left was from the tangle of colors writhing through the Hunger. As the space around them was sucked of air, an oozing column of ink started to descend near them. They felt cold and were losing their breath. They turned their heads to each other and smiled, almost laughing in a little series of quick, short exhales from the nose.

 

Lup leaned over to Barry and spoke into his ear, a breathless whisper that made his entire body tingle, “I want to try something.”

 

She stood up, looking powerful and triumphant, and drew two curled hands back, swinging along crooked elbows. Her hands flipped and jutted out in front of her and she blasted everything she had within her at the nearest column. And it actually stopped anything from exiting it and -- it wobbled a bit. But as soon as she let up, long black spikes emerged from the tower and shot towards them.

 

As Barry watched her from his position sitting on the ground, with her standing on the cliff edge in front of him, he saw her backlit by her own flames, golden hair whipping through the wind of the apocalypse, strong, determined, powerful. The last colorful thing on the planet.

She truly was the sun.

 

_ Gods, I love her,  _ was Barry’s last thought before he died smiling. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	26. Pluck til Time and Times are Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year twenty six

As the Starblaster circled overhead looking for a place to land, there wasn’t a single spot that wasn’t thick with flowers, aside from the bodies of water. Davenport felt bad about the collateral damage he was going to cause with their eventual landing, but he figured that there didn’t seem to be any shortage of flowers there. A ship-sized indentation of crushed flowers would be a drop in the bucket. They were beautiful though. Looking down was like staring into a rainbow close up -- every color was represented in every shade and range of saturation, and each flower was covered in blindingly bright, sparkling dew. After circling for a bit, they found a large lake that had buildings extending out from the surface, and they could see some signs of life below. They decided to land close enough to visit, but far enough away that they wouldn’t be readily visible by the locals, just in case. 

 

But, it didn’t feel quite right when Davenport landed; there wasn’t the familiar feeling of settling against the ground. Instead, the landing just sort of -- stopped, softly. Like it was cushioned by something. Looking out the windows, they saw that they were hovering just above the flowers they had landed on; a field of fiery red tulips. Davenport sighed. There was always going to be something right off the bat that he wouldn’t be able to tell whether it was just strange, or possibly deadly until something happened. Until then, he would be on edge. 

 

…

 

Magnus, Barry and Lup, followed closely by Taako, were the first to set out. Once the ramp was extended, they saw the full extent of the ship’s strange placement as it hovered just a few inches above the top of the tulips. Likewise, the end of the ramp stopped at the same invisible point. They stopped short, looking at the end of the ramp in front of them, not sure what to expect as they stepped out. Lup took the lead.

 

“Let’s do this!” 

 

Bouncing to the bottom of the ramp, Lup lowered a foot off of the edge, testing whether they would also be hovering over the flowers as they walked. But, her foot lowered past where the ramp stopped. About to step into the flowers, she tried as much as possible to gently step in between them. The top of an orange and red tulip brushed against her leg, causing her leg to fade away into a bluish white outline. It traveled over her body until she was only a Lup shape, filled with mist. 

 

“Well. Shit.” She was still able to talk, at least. 

 

They all watched in shock, and Taako looked like he was going to lose his composure. Lup backed away from the flowers and stepped back up the ramp. After being away from the flowers for a few seconds, the mist in Lup turned flesh-toned with pockets of bright red and expanded outward, filling in her outline, clothes and all, returning her to normal. 

 

“Huh. That sure is somethin’.” Lup turned to face the group. “Barry, you got a take on this?”

 

“I uh -- I’d have to think about it or test them or something. But, first thing that comes to mind — maybe a defense mechanism?” Barry could see Taako out of the corner of his eye, tense. He didn’t seem happy about Lup throwing herself head first into the new plane and the appearance of her potentially immediately disappearing. 

 

“I’ll umm -- go next and test it out some more, yeah? You all stay here and watch in case I beef it, heh.” 

 

“That sounds like you want us to watch you die,” Magnus chuckled a bit, his arms folded in front of him looking impatient, wanting to do  _ something. _

 

“That- You know what I mean.” Barry carefully made his way to the bottom of the ramp and stepped into the flowers, where he was also turned into a mist-filled outline of himself. “Feels pretty weird. But, seems okay so far?” 

 

After watching Barry walk further out, Magnus started to make his way down the ramp.

 

“Where you going, Maggie?” Taako was still looking tense, concerned. Lup had also noticed and was staying near him, even though all she wanted to do was take a running leap into the flowers to see if she would turn to mist before hitting the ground. 

 

Magnus shrugged. “Seems like it’s fine! I’m gonna go follow Barold.” 

 

Taako waved a dismissive hand. “Cool, cool. Lemme know if y’all are still alive in an hour. I’m not trusting it, so I might as well go take a nap.” 

 

Lup sighed and turned to follow Taako inside. She wanted to adventure out into the world with reckless abandon, but she knew that she owed it to him to be a little more careful for a bit. 

 

...

 

After some messing around, Magnus and Barry were able to confirm several times that touching the flowers would make your body mostly incorporeal, but stepping back out of them returned you to normal. It held true even after being in the flowers for extended periods of time. 

 

“This is fucking coool!” Magnus rolled by Barry, who had just decided that he was going to try and see if he could do a handstand with his feather-light body. 

 

Barry took stock of the landscape as he and Magnus ran around and tested the limits of the plane’s strange power. Where in most places there might normally be grass, there were only flowers. There were no leaves on the trees; only thick bunches of flowers bursting from each node on every branch. 

 

The height and color and appearance of the flowers varied all over -- some being short like grass, all the way up to towering a few feet over their heads. And in between the flowers, the ground was entirely made of the rounded tops of soft, red gems, like a pomegranate. 

 

After delivering their observations to the crew, it was decided nonetheless that not many of them should ever be outside of the ship at once, just in case. But they were ready to go ahead with exploring the world, becoming ghosts of themselves in order to do so. Taako lightened up a little bit, but still followed after Lup when she went outside. He mostly sat in the shade from the shadow of the ship and watched as they worked. 

 

Barry and Lup were still able to pick up things with their mist-forms, seeming to be semi-solid, or at least able to apply slight pressure with their outline. Too much pressure though would cause whatever they were touching to be pushed into the mist inside their fingers and then immediately dropped out of their grip. It made their work a bit more slow going and difficult, but they successfully performed their usual collecting and testing procedures. But they were not able to touch the flowers -- they would phase right through them. There was a pretty strong message that the flowers were off limits and refused to be damaged in any way. They also noticed that when they were outdoors, they never felt hungry. Hunger only ever set in when they were corporeal again inside of the ship. They took it as an opportunity to save their rations and spent a good part of their days outdoors while always keeping at least two people on the ship at a time. 

 

***

 

When they made their way to the little village in the water, they saw that the buildings weren’t extending out from under the water, but that they were built on large, flat expanses of rock that reached just above the surface. The short, round, red-cheeked citizens were soft spoken and polite and accepted the crew readily. They were glad to help look for the light and needed no convincing, and they were at once interested in Merle’s proselytizing about Pan. 

 

“So what are all your names?” Merle looked around the flat stone that they all stood on that seemed to function like a town square. They looked at each other and seemed confused. Merle pressed them.

“What do you all call each other? Like… when you over there,” and he pointed to a particularly timid villager standing in back of the others, “when you want to talk to this fella,” and he pointed at the next person, “about… this fella over here,” he scanned the crowd and picked someone who seemed to almost be hiding behind another villager, “how do you let them know who you’re talking about?”

They looked at each other again. “We’ve never needed to talk about each other. We’re all here, together.” 

“You don’t got secrets? Or gossip?” They shook their heads, seeming confused at the words themselves. 

“Well, alright! You all do your thing, I can still talk to you about Pan anyways.”

Though they had no previous concept of religion, a god of nature and growth was exactly the sort of thing that spoke to them. They showered Merle with compliments upon the conclusion of every sermon he gave and thanked him profusely for introducing them to a new ‘friend’. They seemed to understand when Merle explained the concept of what a god was to them, but they also insisted that anyone who gave or helped in any way was a friend, and that anyone who was ‘with’ them would be folded into their tiny society. Merle learned that for them, one didn’t need to have a body or a voice to be present or to be in their lives. Meaning that even death for them wasn’t really recognized as a passing or a loss, but just a change of form. They only ever died of old age, and when it was time to go, they would just sense that it was their time to die, and would simply walk off into the flowers at sunset and not return. 

 

Merle was inspired and touched by their way of life during his stay with them. And he feared for them. Feared for them because when the Hunger came, well -- they didn’t even have a concept of what fighting or defense was. He was going to see if he could get Magnus and maybe some others to stay with him at the end of the year to help as much as they could before being torn away and put back together on the ship. 

As the crew eventually found out, the small village also had no form of currency or trade; if someone needed something, it was either given to them, or one of them would help to find it. They all trusted each other implicitly, to the point where it didn’t even seem like trust was a concept among them; it was a way of life that didn’t need to be named. They didn’t seem to be interested in any resources that the crew offered to trade, but they were elated by small, symbolic things; little stones from other planets, some of the extra beads Lup had collected, soft tapestries. But they required nothing in exchange for giving what they could to the crew, so the crew had to pretend as though they were just giving freely to them, rather than performing a transaction whenever they gave them items.

***

 

Taako would barely even talk to Lup as they held onto each other in their room. She wasn’t going to try and make him, either. She felt horrible -- she could have been more careful, stayed near him. In the previous year, the very first time that she had been outside while he was inside, he lost her again. He was rightfully paranoid.  

 

“I need you to stop dying.”

 

She reacted teasingly, as they usually did with each other. “Welll I didn’t  _ really _ die last time, not until the last second anyways”

 

He shot her a look. “Fine. I need you to stop  not being around.” 

She could tell he was serious, and that in itself was distressing. She pulled him closer to her. 

 

“ Hey, I’m sorry okay? But I don’t really have a whole lot of control over these things. It’s not like I’m  _ trying  _ to die or disappear. And I’m not going to stop going out and exploring these worlds and doing work, you know that right?” 

 

Taako said nothing, just huffed. Lup sighed, hoping that she was getting through to him at least a little.

“Let’s stick close together this year -- and next. Have some quality twin time. Anyways, I’m feeling pretty certain that death kind of just isn’t a thing here? But I’ll stay as close as you want anyways, okay?” 

 

Taako remained silent but held Lup a little tighter and she knew that meant that he agreed. 

 

...

 

Late in the day,Taako abruptly pulled Barry outside from his spot where he was reading a book on the couch. Apropos of nothing, he launched directly into a conversation with Barry that felt like it was already halfway through. 

 

“There’s nothing I can teach you that’ll get you even within a fraction of how powerful Lup is without decades of practice, obvi. But if she’s… incapacitated or needs back up, these are the things I need you to do.” 

 

Taako motioned for Barry to follow him down the ramp. He stepped into the flowers and was incorporeal with a second. Barry followed him and they walked a safe distance from the Starblaster. Taako made sure that Barry was watching him closely and went straight into casting something -- except that nothing happened when he did. He tried several more times, faster, more intensely, obviously frustrated. 

 

“FUCK can’t even do that here, huh?” Stewing, he walked back up the ramp with Barry following him, worried. 

 

Once inside, Taako whipped around and faced Barry, suddenly enough that it startled him. 

 

“Alright Barold. Next year we go at it double hard. Yeah?” 

 

“Yeah, for sure. I’m uh- I really do want to learn as much as possible, and I-I -- I promise, I’ll um, do absolutely anything I can to, uh…”

 

“It’s cool, Barry. I know you will.” Taako hesitated with his hand held out in front of him and then went through with patting Barry on the shoulder before turning to go to the kitchen.

 

Davenport was coincidentally walking through the common room to the kitchen, looking for Taako. When he found him, he asked if he was busy.

 

“Not anymore.” Taako had both of his hands placed on the counter, grounding himself and trying to fight off the disappointment. Davenport approached him. 

 

“Do you want to take a walk?” 

 

Taako sighed. “Yeah. I think maybe we should.”  He knew he couldn’t hold a grudge. Not under their circumstances. So, they left together to go patch things up. 

 

***

 

With the help of the locals, the crew was able to pinpoint the location of the light. They had split up and explored the surrounding area in quadrants until one group saw something unusual in the distance; an expanse of tall, pitch black flowers. So black, that it was easy to see even from far away that there was something glowing underneath them, lighting up the undersides of the ominous petals. 

 

Magnus and Merle stayed to work on the church they were building, along with a handful of locals. Lucretia went with the group that was going to retrieve the light so that she could chronicle the trip and to get in as many botanical drawings as she could. Lup was leading the locals, and Taako was also going because Lup was going. Davenport and Barry ended up being the ones who stayed on the ship that time. 

 

...

 

While the others were out looking for the light, Davenport thought over the events of the prior year. He was embarrassed, afraid -- he didn’t really look forward to having the light on the ship again. But, that time he knew that he wouldn’t be the one spending time with it; Barry would. After his experience, he had a whole new appreciation for Barry’s work; how he had to study it closely and spend so much time with it, for months upon months. And he had been -- fine. The crew had that conversation a while back about the strange allure of the light and the way that it seemed to call out to them when they slept. Davenport thought that was the worst of it before he learned that it could be so,  _ so _ much worse. 

But, Barry had never lost his composure or tried to make off with it or coveted it. He had always greatly respected Barry as their tirelessly dedicated, hard working science officer, but he found a whole new level of respect and admiration for him, as well as for his resolve and strength. 

 

He remembered that they were the only two on the ship -- and that Barry was most likely working, even knowing that he’d only be working more as soon as the others came back with the light. He had such dedication to their efforts and to the crew as a whole. Davenport decided to seek him out and spend some time with him, one on one. He was going to make that man take a break from work before the light was brought back, and they were going to have a drink together. 

 

…

 

Barry sat in Davenport’s office, wondering what was happening and why he was there, while Davenport shuffled through the bottom drawer of his desk. Barry heard clanking, and then Davenport set two glasses and an ancient looking, half-empty bottle of brown liquor on the desk. He hopped back into his seat, removed the glass topper from the bottle, and poured about an inch into each glass.

 

“I was thinking, when they bring the light back, you should wait until tomorrow to get to work on it. I know how hard you work and how much you do for us, and I think that maybe tonight we should take it easy. Have a little bit of a Barry-appreciation dinner party.” 

 

Barry already felt his face turning red just at the thought of having that much attention on him. “I, uh --”

 

Davenport slid one of the glasses to Barry. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a spectacle of it. I think I know you a bit by now, and a Barry-party is one where Barry  _ isn’t _ the center of attention.” He lifted his glass and motioned it towards Barry and winked. “Only you and I will know that it’s for you.” 

 

Barry lifted his glass to Davenport’s. “That’s -- that’s very nice of you. Thank you.”

 

Davenport smiled. “Of course. And I hope you know that you can come to me if you ever need anything. Even if it’s just a drink.”  

 

Barry exhaled with a small laugh, looking down at his drink, swirling it a bit and wondering how rough it was going to be to get down. “Yeah let’s, uh- let’s make sure to do this every now and then.” 

 

“Let’s.” Davenport downed his drink like it was water. Barry looked into his glass one more time before throwing it back, and couldn’t help but cough after. 

 

“Shit, yep, that is -- something else.” Barry’s eyes were watering just a bit and he was surprised at how unaffected Davenport was. 

 

“It’s the good stuff. Managed to hold on to this since home world. Been pretty frugal with it.” 

 

Barry stiffened. “Oh, wow. I didn’t know you’ve had it since then, I’m uh -- you probably don’t want to waste that kinda stuff on me, I’m not great about telling the difference or appreciating good alco-”

 

“Don’t worry. I wanted to share it with you; if you hated it, that’s fine.” Davenport laughed, the curled ends of his mustache shaking as he did. “I do want to ask you though… well, you know how my experience with the light went last year. I just wanted to know how you feel about working with it? Are you -- I don’t really know how to say this without sounding ominous, but are you frightened by it?”

 

“It’s not great.” Barry sighed. “Can’t say that I enjoy it. But I definitely want to figure it out. Figure anything out, really. And having Lup’s help with it makes it a lot better. I think it’s just not something you ever want to be alone with. That seems like when it’s the worst.”

 

Davenport looked down at his empty glass. “Yeah. That was no good.” He looked back up at Barry and tried to put a cheerful face back on. “You’re not alone, you know. And if Lup is ever not available to help you, any one of us --  _ all  _ of us, are here to support you. I appreciate all of the work that you do Barry, I really do. And, I want to make sure that you know that you can ask for help or take a break, whenever and for however long you need.” 

 

Barry was moved. Having it put into words and directly being told that his work was appreciated made him feel newly motivated. “Thank you, really. That means a lot to me. I’ll make sure to keep that in mind.” 

 

Barry and Davenport continued their conversation until the others came back with the light. And for the first time, Barry was feeling eager to get to work on it. 

***

In the lab, Barry wondered about what tests he could or should run with the light. He was hesitant to uncover the box without someone else in the room with him -- without Lup in the room with him. Even being near it was already upsetting enough. He went to start up some burners, thinking of prepping some compounds that he could expose to it, or maybe even exposing the light itself to heat. They seemed like random, useless tasks, but who knew with that thing? Literally anything at all that they did with it would be more than nothing, and with knowing nothing about it except that it messed with their heads and apparently anything else that it got near, who knew what might reveal some interesting or useful fact about it? Hell, something as simple or random as throwing it up against a wall or submerging it underwater might tell them  _ something. _ He paused, and then wrote those two things downs. Fuck it. They hadn’t done it, and literally anything that hadn’t been done was on the table. 

Lup poked her head into the lab as Barry set up burners. Something compelled her to use a sort of taunting, flirtatious tone with him. 

“Hey there, Baaarrry. Makin’ coffee right now, can I get anything else for our hard workin’ science officer?”

“Uh-uhh, um I-I think I’m fine. Coffee is... good.” 

She winked at him and dipped out, and then immediately wondered what was going on with her. She had been holding herself back all morning from immediately pouncing on him and getting into his space. She must have been anticipating finally seeing him a little  _ too  _ much. Plus, the perpetual spring environment and the lightness of being outside there -- she was feeling free  and flirty and unchained. Everything felt good, light, breezy. She loved Barry, and that made her feel energetic, too. Even if that love had nowhere to go… actually, that wasn’t really fair to say. They had a wonderful friendship, and they were part of a tight-knit family. She definitely got to love him a whole lot in that regard. She smiled at the thought; the thought of getting to love him and show him love, in any way, any context at all. 

But, there was still  _ something  _ knocking around in the back of her head. Something she felt like she was supposed to remember. But, being around Barry while having that feeling wasn’t bad like it had been the year before. On second thought, those shitty feelings must have been entirely caused by those fucking dreams. And then from him suddenly being gone, and the red tape on his door that made her sick to her stomach. Having a year’s distance from those events, and then having spent the time that she did alone with Barry in the previous year; it all helped to get rid of that awful feeling of impending danger and loss. She was feeling so much better around Barry. And the itch in the back of her head had a sort of warm feeling attached to it when she was around him. She liked it. 

...

Barry took a moment to breathe, still facing the door where Lup just left, cursing himself for probably the twentieth time that year for being so easily flustered. He turned back to his work and yelped ‘Ah fuck’ as he accidentally brushed his hand over the open, fully heated-up burner that he had turned on before Lup came into the room. That’s what he got for being so damn distracted by someone who was supposed to be his friend. He looked at the burn on his hand and winced; it was a little over an inch long on the side of his palm, right where it bent -- that was going to be a fun feeling every time he used his hand until it healed. 

Lup twirled into the room with coffee mugs in each hand. Barry noticed that she looked like she was in a particularly good mood. That must have been why she talked to him like  _ that  _ before getting coffee. He had heard her use that sort of teasing-flirting tone before, and it never really meant anything. He tried to subtly turn his hand over and set it on his knee under the desk, but of course she noticed.

“Whatchya got there, hot stuf- ffff?” She stumbled at the end of her words, but had to follow through or else it would have been even weirder. That was a term that she just threw around here and there but -- she didn’t really mean to use it  _ just then.  _ But that was fine. She used that with friends. Barry was her friend. And only she knew why it felt awkward for her to say that to him in particular. 

Barry blushed, of course, but he was also pretty distracted.

“Well? What’s going on with your hand, Bear?” 

He didn’t want her to worry about it. He had plenty of old burns on his hands; he was used to the feeling. But she was persistent. 

“I just uh, just burned myself a bit.”

After setting down their mugs, she put out her hands, palm up, gesturing him to give her his burnt hand, concern written all over her face -- exactly what he was trying to avoid. She lightly gasped when she saw it. It wasn’t just  _ a bit.  _

“Barold! You were just going to sit here with this? Come-” she tugged the sleeve of his shirt, and he got up. She looped an arm through his. “You’ve got to run that kind of stuff under water, you doofus.” 

She took him to the kitchen and pointed him to the sink while she went to the pantry. “Don’t run it under cold water, keep it around room temperature. I’m gonna get a potato.” 

Barry turned on the faucet and stuck his hand under before fully processing what Lup said. “Wait -- why are you getting a potato?” 

“Oh, poor Barry. This is why your hands are all scarred up, huh? I would’ve thought a scientist would know how to take care of burns just as well as a cook would.” She stuck her tongue out at him before turning back to rifle through the pantry. 

***

With the light in the lab, Barry didn’t feel much like doing any unrelated work in the same space as it. Anything that didn’t directly involve it, he wanted to do without the box staring him down from the other side of his desk. 

 

“I think I’m gonna - I’m uh, thinking of doing the rest of this stuff in the workspace in my room. Not super jazzed about being around the light if I don’t have to be.” 

 

Lup nodded, gave his hair a ruffle, and walked off without saying anything. Barry was confused; did he hurt her feelings? He couldn’t tell what that meant. Maybe it wasn’t anything; she was always changing things up and, the way she responded to stuff depended heavily on her mood. But it seemed a little off for her to be silent as she left the lab. He headed to the hallway, and on the way to his room, he heard Lup’s muffled voice behind him.

 

“Sho, what’re we working om?”

 

“Oh-uh, yeah I was just going to…” Barry didn’t realize that she had interpreted his statement as them going to his room to work together, and that she had only left to get a slice of cake from the kitchen. Lup saw his surprised expression and quickly swallowed.

“Oh damn! I should’ve gotten one for you, too. Hang on one sec.” And before Barry could say anything, she was down the hall on the way to the kitchen. He went to the door of his room, opened it, and just sort of -- stood there, not knowing what else to do. He heard her running back down the hall, and she appeared at his door with two plates of cake in her hands, looking triumphant. He laughed and couldn’t help himself; something slipped out that he didn’t mean to say out loud -- 

 

“Heh, cute.” 

 

He thought he was going to die on the spot. But Lup seemed casual about it. 

 

“I know, right?” 

She brought cake. That was cute. It was a cute thing that she did, and him saying that was just a fact being observed, and nothing for her to be excited about. 

 

_ What the hell.  _ He had been noticing lately that there was something that made him feel a little more impulsive when talking to her. As if there were a new level of even deeper familiarity with her. They had spent a lot of time together the year before - a  _ lot  _ of time - but it didn’t feel like that was where the impulse to say too much was coming from. And while he was certain that it wasn’t because of that time spent together, whatever it  _ actually  _ was -- that was completely escaping him. 

 

…

 

“Oh my gods Lup, you’re getting crumbs all over my bed.” Barry couldn’t help but chuckle. He really didn’t mind, and after all -- she was  _ so fucking cute.  _

 

Lup just laughed, her mouth full as she sat cross-legged, rocking back and forth on Barry’s bed. There was only the one rolling chair in his room, after all. And she didn’t like the armchair that  he offered to pull over from the other corner. She said it was ‘too confining’. 

He thought about how lucky he was to spend time with her. How lucky he was to have her sitting on his bed, ruining it with cake. How smart she was, how funny she was, how much he admired her in her serious moments, in her adventurous moments, and in the moments like the one in front of him where she was laughing with her mouth full. 

He moved to the workspace in his room because he had some new ideas to test that didn’t involve the light. Because, his idea of taking a break was working on something that he would rather be doing. But, it wasn’t actually anything that had to be done right then. 

“Hey Lup?”

“Mmffffmm?”

He laughed at her being adorable. “It’s really nice outside. I mean, it kind of is constantly here but, you know. Maybe this can wait? I feel like having some time off.” 

Lup’s eyes shot open and she smiled as much as she could with her mouth closed -- which, he was honestly surprised that she exercised that sort of restraint. 

After swallowing, she excitedly jumped off of the bed. “Hell yeah, let’s go all ghosty and have some fun!” 

…

 

“Why don’t you just try… walking, first?” Barry watched as Lup skipped backwards away from him. 

 

“That wouldn’t be as much fun! Come on, where’s that adventurous scientific spirit?” 

 

“Yeah, uh -- musta left it back in the lab,” Barry chuckled. 

 

Lup stopped finally and crouched a bit, readying herself before hauling off into a full-blown sprint directly at Barry. He cringed, but stood still -- Lup wanted to try something, so they were going to try it, and that was all there was to it. She ran straight at Barry and he tensed and closed his eyes. And then, something like wind, but with a very light pressure, passed through his body. He opened his eyes and turned and saw Lup jumping up and down with her arms held up. 

 

“That was RAD!” .

 

She was having an incredible amount of fun testing the limits and possibilities of their bodies. She could easily jump higher, and she was delighting in taking running leaps across the field of flowers or diving into them and mimicking swimming. Barry followed, running after her, laughing like a kid.

…

 

Lup and Barry made their way to a patch a bit further from the ship that was made up of tall flowers with wide open petals that sort of frayed and spiraled at the ends. The flowers were a few feet taller than them and the sun made small appearances through the spaces between the petals, leaving the red, shining ground dappled in soft afternoon light. And they saw something else new and interesting; with the larger flowers they saw that their stems were tinted green, but mostly transparent, and you could see water moving inside of them. Barry moved in close, examining and marveling over the stems that were as big around as his arm. 

 

“ -- it really looks like it’s nothing but skin with water inside. I’m not sure how these are even standing without having any sort of vascular tissue.”

 

Lup walked over to Barry, set both of her hands on his shoulder, leaned in close to his ear and whispered “nerd”. Then ran off, darting through the flowers. Barry laughed and shook his head, trying not to get too worked up over Lup being that close and whispering in his ear. 

 

He really needed to do something about his reactions to the closeness of their friendship. He wanted those moments to just be fun, cherished. Not something that made him so nervous that his breath got short and his face red. That wasn’t the reaction of a friend. And no matter what other feelings he had for her, he wanted to be a good friend, first and foremost.  

 

Mid-thought, he heard Lup scream. It startled him at first, but then he recognized it as her ‘excited-about-something’ scream. She called out for him and he half walked half floated towards her voice. Once he made his way through a particularly dense patch of stems, he saw Lup’s legs. Sticking up out from the ground. They sank and disappeared, phasing through the pomegranate-like jewels, and then a moment later, he saw the tips of her ears and then the misty outline of her head reappear. 

 

“Barry! You can just go through the ground! It’s cool as fuck down here!” 

 

She disappeared again -- and so Barry followed Lup into the ground. There was a strange, simultaneous sensation of pressure and of being broken down and scattered when passing through the soft, ruby crystals. His vision was filled with sparkling kaleidoscope patterns in hundreds of shades of red. It felt like it was coming from inside his head; it was almost frightening. It made him feel light and shaky, like he was losing all concept of  _ self, _ but more importantly, it was unnaturally beautiful; awe inspiringly so. It felt like it could have been death; that maybe dying-dying would be like leaving the body and traveling through and also being made of abstract images and patterns for eternity. He couldn’t see Lup or his hands in front of his face, if his hands even existed anymore. He could only see the twisting geometric patterns of glistening transparent reds, spiraling around and through him in slow motion. 

 

And then, it came to a jarring and sudden end as he phased into a cavern. Lup was standing, facing away from him, staring down a tunnel. The cloudiness within her form was in a constant state of motion, her hair blowing in a soft wind that traveled down the tunnel as she stood stoically still. The floor and ceiling of the cavern were made of even more of the translucent, soft, red, roundly faceted kernels. And then, Barry noticed breaks in the ruby ceiling with wispy white threads hanging from them. They must have been the ends of the roots from the flowers above. Barry watched as large glistening droplets of water traveled down the white threads. When they hit the ground they made soft chiming noises, and every one that dropped sounded like a different note of music. They played in a disorderly, gentle, pattern with celestial and harp-like tones. He looked down at his foggy hands and back up at Lup. It was the most beauty he had ever experienced in his life: a swirling mist in the shape of Lup reflecting back the garnet light of a neverending jeweled floor, incorporeal hair moving in slow motion, soft bells from droplets of water playing out an irregular song, the kind that only nature could make. He felt what seemed like tears, but were wisps of clouds heavy with water that broke away from his face and sank into the floor of glowing scarlet. 

 

Lup turned around to face Barry and she also had wisps of dewy fog falling from her eyes. She tilted her head as she looked at him; her eyes softened and she smiled gently.

 

“Barry. I’m so glad that… I get to experience these worlds with you.” 

 

Barry smiled back, and it felt like everything within him was overflowing with an impossible to identify, euphoric emotion. 

***

 

Maybe she’d be able to tell him someday. Though, even if things did stop, if they did figure out a way to win against the Hunger, if they were able to live like normal again… she still would be afraid to lose him as a friend. Just the thought of it filled her with a heavy sadness. If there were no external pressure, if there were no working in close quarters, she realized that she would still desperately cling to their friendship -- maybe even moreso, since they’d be free to go off and do their own thing. What if she said the wrong thing and then never saw him again? What if they started aging normally and he went off to live his life before it was over? Maybe even -- meet someone, be with someone, have a family. She could feel tears pressing at the back of her eyes at the thought of it. She wanted him to have anything and everything that he wanted, but she hoped she would never lose having him in her life. Every day was better because of him. How could she lose that? How could she stop having those days with him? 

 

She would just keep dreaming about a hypothetical ‘someday’. Even though she knew that someday might never come. 

 

She held his head against her shoulder as he tried not to feel weak, tried not to give in to the sadness that came from what the light did to him. They found it so early in the year and he had been so motivated to get  _ something  _ done with it. And it was nearing the end of their time. He wanted to save them all so badly; if there was anyone who could figure out the light, it was him. And he knew that. And that’s why it tore him up that it was so hard for him to be around it. That he was closing the year with nothing to show for it except a host of strange, worrisome impulses and voices in his head. She was just glad that she could be there for him. She was glad that he considered her a friend enough to show her the part of him that was afraid, that felt weak. Even though she knew he was anything but. 

 

She loved Barry. She wanted to be there for him, always. And she felt sure that she had long lost any fighting spirit against her feelings that there might have been left in her. She was going to love him forever. 


	27. Party Points

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Twenty Seven

  
  


Taako walked into the Starblaster after a day of working with Barry outside. They had found a miniature wasteland of junk that seemed to be an only partially filled in landfill, and it was a great opportunity to test Barry’s progress with aim and general power. Plus, blowing up old, alien electronics with magic missiles was in general a great way to spend the day. 

 

Barry was beat, and he had to convince Taako that the potential for an asthma attack was not just an excuse. Taako had kept his promise of going double-hard at practice that year and the planet they were on, while not quite oppressively hot, was very muggy and polluted. 

 

Once they went inside, Barry headed straight to the couch and collapsed onto a pile of pillows, while Taako casually rolled in and started looking for Magnus. He found him in the kitchen, rifling through the pantry. 

 

“Sup, Magpie.”

 

Magnus pivoted towards Taako, looking just the slightest bit guilty, but he quickly waved it off; he hadn’t gotten into anything  _ yet. _

 

“Oh -- that’s a new nickname. I actually kinda like that one!” Magnus slyly shut the pantry door behind him as he fully turned to talk to Taako. 

 

“Cool, cool. Listen; later Barry and Lup are going out to throw mud at each other or whatever it is that they do. You wanna take point with me on visiting the city and hope that it isn’t murderous?” 

 

“Yeah! Totally, let’s hang out!”

 

Taako rolled his eyes. “Tch, it’s not hanging out, it’s just wor-”

 

“Hey, I wanna go too!” Merle appeared from nowhere, cutting Taako off. 

 

Taako huffed. “Don’t you have like, cleric stuff to do?” 

 

Merle rolled his eyes as he put his hands on his hips. “Yeaaah, like talking about Paaan, and it’s easier to preach to people when there are actual people around. So, I’m going and you can either walk with me or not.” 

 

“Jeez, okay okay, you don’t have to throw a fit over it, old man. I’m going to go eat a sandwich  _ alone  _ and have some me-time, then we can head out in an hour or two?” 

 

Merle and Magnus nodded excitedly, and they all parted ways -- except for Magnus who waited for them to leave so that he could get back into the pantry. 

 

***

 

It was settling into late afternoon and Lup and Barry were back inside after getting only a couple hours of work done; Barry was already pretty spent before they had even started. She left him to rest as she walked to the kitchen to see what she could throw together to revive him with. 

 

With Lup in the kitchen, Barry was nearly asleep on the common room couch before being startled awake by Taako bursting into the door of the Starblaster and excitedly yelling for Lup. She came running from the kitchen, looking fairly startled herself, and glanced around in confusion. Upon spotting her brother, she threw both of her arms wide out in a bewildered, questioning gesture.

“What in the everloving fuck are you squawking about?” 

 

Taako was lightly jumping up and down with excitement, his fists clenched in front of him. “That big ol building in the middle of the city?” 

 

“Yeah?” 

 

“It’s one giant ass dance club. This society,” Taako waved two index fingers in the air as if he were conducting his words like music, “is centralized around partying, and all the shops are for gaudy party clothes, wild ass makeup, and I-am-in-LOVE, you have got to come with me NOW.” 

 

Lup was  _ very  _ interested. “Oh shit. Well.” She tried not to be obvious about checking on Barry from the corner of her eye. He looked exhausted; she wasn’t going to push him. Taako was already running back out the door, and Lup absolutely had to follow. She turned and smiled, lightly waving at Barry on her way out. “Let’s go out later when you’re not dying, yeah?”

 

Barry smiled, his eyes only half open. “Yeah.”  

 

Once they left, Barry finally managed to get up and make his way to his room where he could actually sleep. He had really overdone himself, but he would continue to do so as long as Taako was willing to teach him. He wanted to be better for Lup, better for everyone. Even more importantly, he had started to learn how to want to be better for himself, too. He was building a feeling of power, confidence -- and he was maybe at least a little bit closer to being able to keep up with Lup. 

 

***

The city was depressing to be in. There were some amazingly bad, gaudy clothing shops, more stores for booze than there were for food, but by far the most attention grabbing thing was how filthy it was. And not just because of the litter and the pollution, but in the way that it seemed like the entire city was slowly becoming a swamp. The sewer grates were so neglected and clogged that it left the reservoirs at the curbsides filled with green, stagnant slime. There were unidentifiable, fuzzy, green and white growths spilling from every crack and seam in the sidewalks. Every dingy brick wall of every sad, dilapidated building was lined with little curling, black veins that may have been roots from some underground plant, reaching for the stores of dirty water in the gutters above. 

 

They carefully stepped around the tripping and slipping hazards and were careful not to touch anything. It was a miserable atmosphere and Lup was unsure how Taako had been able to get past it enough to have found whatever it was that he was so excited for. But, he barely seemed bothered as he hurried down the streets, leading Lup to the shop he had found. 

 

They finally arrived at a storefront with windows that had a tacky amount of neon lights in different shapes and colors, some with words advertising their sales and uncommon items, but most just filling up space. The people loitering outside smoking were wearing extravagant layers of jewelry and scarves lined with feathers. Their makeup was glittery and neon, their entire eyelids up to the brow were colored in with glaringly bright, orange and yellow pigment that was winged out in multiple points that reached to their hairlines. Some of them had makeup that was even more elaborate, with things like realistic eyes painted above and below their own, an extra mouth on their forehead, or prosthetics to make it look like their faces were embedded with jewels or clusters of trigonal crystals. After seeing them, Lup understood. Shit was about to get nuts, and she could not  _ wait  _ to see what the club there was going to be like.  

***

“Sup, squares? Who wants to party with the cool kids tonight?” 

 

Taako came in from outside, whirling through the door, sparkling so much that it was almost painful to look at him. Everything he wore was crowded with excessive amounts of glitter and sequins, his ears were lined with chains of small, tinkling bells that had been enchanted to emit a neon glow, and his face was decorated with a series of three dimensional geometric shapes in shining metallic paint. 

 

Davenport and Merle looked up from their card game at the dining table. Taako looked around and realized that no one else was around to hear his announcement. 

 

“The hell is everyone?” 

 

Merle lazily waved a hand, holding his cards still in the other. “Y’know. Around.” He turned to Taako with eager eyes. “But to answer your question, yeah! Where are we going?” 

 

“Woof.” Taako leaned back towards the door. “Lup, you can come in now, there’s only a party of two for the grand reveal.” 

 

Lup’s muffled voice came through, “Aww, dang.” She stepped inside and Merle and Davenport looked on, having an even more difficult time processing what she was wearing than they had with Taako. She had knotted layers of braids piled on top of her head, intertwined with what looked like hundreds of strands of multi colored tinsel, interrupted by transparent blue spheres of different sizes that were poking out from inside of a braid here and there, or spiraled by a loose ribbon of hair. Between the series of spheres were golden spikes that seemed to jut out directly from her head under the elaborately wrapped hairdo. Her makeup was all iridescent blue and gold and she wore a tight-fitting, white dress that looked like it had electric waves coursing within the fabric that created rippling streams of color in alternating patterns and speeds. 

 

“Wow, I didn’t realize how --  _ intense  _ it was when you said that the clothes here were unique.” Davenport looked exhausted just from seeing what they were wearing. “Yeah, I think I’ll sit this one out.” 

 

Lup and Taako simultaneously pouted and Davenport just shrugged at them before folding his cards and getting out of his seat. “Since it seems like you’re going, Merle, I’ll be off to bed now and I’ll see you all tomorrow. And I  _ trust  _ that you all won’t be too hungover to work.” 

 

“Fiiiine.” Taako looked over at Lup. “Let’s go hit up everyone else? Wherever they are?”

 

“Sounds good! You wanna go hunt down Luc and-” 

 

Taako looked at Lup slyly before interrupting her. “Yeah, I’ll find Luc and Mags, and you can go get Baaarry.” Lup sneered at him while also trying not to smile. That was what she wanted, but also fuck him for teasing her. They split up and gathered the rest of their family, excited to head out and see what the party life on the planet was like. 

 

***

 

Arriving at the club was like walking up to an amusement park. Flashing lights lined the outside of the building, the line was intimidatingly long, and the booming music and shouting crowds within could be plainly heard from outside. Waiters walked up and down the line, taking drink orders. Most people were half on their way to wasted before even getting into the door. And once inside, it looked like the entire city must have been there. 

 

It wasn’t long before Lup was drunk, and that combined with the atmosphere and the people had her stewing on some bottled up feelings.

 

She was pent up, frustrated; she was dying for contact, touch, flirting.

And it would be great to act on that with someone who would be okay with filling that role in a temporary, low-stakes way. She thought about Barry -- thought about drunkenly flirting with  _ him  _ and touching  _ him, _ and a cloud of heat rose to her face, spreading blush across her cheeks under her freckles. She wanted that with him. She wanted it in general too but, with him…

 

It wasn’t going to happen,  _ wasn’t going to happen.  _ And she realized that she didn’t want anything with anyone else, not even for fun -- he had occupied her entire heart. So what should she do? She wanted to maybe find some subtle way to flirt with him… maybe if she got tipsy enough later, she could be a little touchy with him and blame it on the booze and the atmosphere of the club. But, she already felt like she was pushing it with getting him to go out at all when he had been working himself into exhaustion. She wasn’t even sure if he was enjoying himself. Maybe that’s what she should do -- just talk to him, get a temperature check, go be a good friend and make sure that he even wanted to be there. And if not, maybe she could walk him back to the ship? Maybe they could have some alone time, go for a walk… in the evening, with her looking as amazing as she did. 

 

She was just wanting to feel wanted. But, there was really only one person that she wanted that with. 

 

***

 

Barry went and ordered another drink because he needed to do  _ something. _ Lup had wanted so badly for him to go out, and then it seemed like she got distracted and went off to dance or socialize or whatever other thing that he probably would have just slowed her down with. She also invited everyone else to go out as well, and she wasn’t glued to  _ their  _ sides, so why should she be babysitting him? But he was self-conscious being alone. He didn’t know what to do or how to enjoy being out. On top of all of that, he stuck out like a sore thumb; his look wasn’t necessarily in line with the aesthetic of the club. After seeing Lup when she had nearly knocked down his bedroom door to invite him out, he had at the very least had the good sense to put on a collared shirt and the one blazer that he owned. He really needed to figure out how to operate in different social settings; he was learning so many other things that were arguably much harder. But, being in a loud club with a lot of people while drinking and moping about the love of his life was the hardest thing for him, it seemed. 

 

Then, things got even harder. As he wandered, drink in hand, wondering what to do, he saw Lup across the room. She was to the side of the dance floor talking to a man. Which was fine, but -- she was  _ so  _ close to him. And he kept leaning in even closer to her so that he could hear her over the music. Barry at once felt upset and guilty. If he watched any longer, he’d be essentially spying on her. So, he turned and walked away, knowing that whatever was happening was probably nothing, but also none of his business even if it  _ was _ something.

 

His heart raced as he wandered to a spot near the back of the booths, further away from the dance floor, and stood there, trying not to worry himself sick. Lup was a person, Lup could do anything she wanted to,  _ obviously. _ He had already resigned to carrying around a secret love for her for forever, and his goal above all else was to be a good friend for her. The way that he was reacting was not how a friend should act. 

 

He willed himself back to focusing on the fact that Lup wanted him there, so he had to do his best to try and  _ want _ to be there. He was nervous about looking like he was bored or not enjoying himself; he didn’t want Lup to notice, if he even met up with her again that night. But he also didn’t know what to do with himself or how to even begin to look like he wanted to be there. 

 

It was during that thought that a woman walked up to Barry. After introducing herself and starting a conversation with him, he felt lucky that there was  _ something  _ happening that would help him look engaged in the outing that Lup was so excited to bring him to. But then, the way that the dark-haired woman started talking to him -- he knew almost instantly that he was in trouble. 

 

***

 

Lup fought her way through the crowded club -- she had completely lost him, and that was after pushing so hard for him to go. She hoped that he would figure things out on his own, meet some people, have fun. But she realized that she was projecting herself onto him. That was  _ her  _ idea of fun,  _ her  _ idea of how easy socializing was. And she kind of ditched out on him. But it wasn’t because she didn’t want to be around him. It was because she  _ really  _ wanted to be around him. And earlier in the night, she knew that she was getting to a level of inebriation that made that dangerous. But by that point, she was past being afraid or nervous about that danger anymore. She had a one track mind at that moment and her only goal was to find and talk to Barry, have a heart to heart with him -- because being drunk in a club is the perfect time to do stuff like that. Gods, what was she doing… but no, she was gonna do it. Her knowing what was a bad idea versus a good one wasn’t going to stop her from doing the bad one; besides, she could handle it. She was great at being drunk, great at partying, great at socializing, and she would be great at talking to Barry about whatever she wanted to talk about. She was emotional-type-drunk and couldn’t stop thinking about what a perfect friend he was and how much she admired him and how much she loved spending time with him and… and some other things. But, she would be able to reign it in and not let anything slip out about  _ that,  _ for sure. 

 

She found him, finally -- he had a bottle in his hand and was actually talking to someone. She was happy; he was doing it! He looked like he was enjoying himself without having his hand held, and she felt bad that she had been thinking that way about him the whole time. She was thinking of him as a kid again, and he wasn’t one. Of  _ course  _ he would know how to take care of himself in a social situation, even if it wasn’t one where he felt at home like she did. He was standing near a corner, talking to a human woman who was dressed fairly plain compared to everyone else, but in a classy way. Her and Barry were both laughing — a lot. Lup tried to turn away and go back to dancing, to get another drink, to run around and meet new people, but she couldn’t stop watching. She was partially hidden in the crowd, turned a bit away, but watching from the corner of her eye. When she saw the woman laughing even more and setting a hand on Barry’s shoulder, she felt her stomach drop. 

 

Why should it upset her though? What right did she have? He was a person with feelings and needs too, after all. She had no right or reason to be possessive of him any more than she did Magnus or Merle, or anyone. She didn’t even know where those guys were or who they were talking to, so why was she being like that and why was there a lump in her throat and why were her eyes watering and, and, and…

 

She stopped spiraling when she noticed how Barry was acting, and she turned a bit to look in their direction more fully. The woman kept laughing a lot; like  _ every  _ time Barry spoke. It seemed almost forced, and she continued to place small touches on him whenever she laughed at something he said. But he didn’t look how he did when he got a pat on the back or a hug from the others or any touch from herself. Lup realized how much she underestimated how in-tune she had become with his body language over the years. He didn’t rub the back of his neck or laugh or look at the ground. He was stiff and awkward in a way that he wasn’t when he was around any of them; he was definitely  _ uncomfortable,  _ not just shy or embarrassed. She smiled; she was going to go rescue him. 

 

Lup started to walk over and as soon Barry noticed her coming towards him, he locked eye contact with her and lit up. The woman turned around to see what he was looking at and seemed disappointed. Lup almost felt bad for her… she looked like she was kind, and of course she wasn’t intentionally making him uncomfortable; she wouldn’t recognize the subtle ways that Barry showed his discomfort. Not like how Lup was able to. 

 

As Lup walked up, the woman addressed Barry. “Oh, is this your girlfriend?” She turned to Lup without waiting for an answer, “He was just telling me about you.” 

 

Lup’s eyes shot open “Oh, was he?” She glanced a bit over at Barry and smiled impishly; he looked terrified. The woman set a hand on Lup’s shoulder — it seemed that she was just generally a touchy person; they had that in common. She leaned in towards Lup so that Barry couldn’t hear. “I have to admit, I  _ was  _ trying to pick him up; there’s not a lot like him around. Sorry about that.” She gently squeezed Lup’s shoulder before letting go and addressing them both, “I hope you two have a good night, I’m going to leave you to it and go mingle some more.” She walked off with a small, friendly wave, and Barry looked  _ mortified.  _

 

Lup turned to Barry, raised an eyebrow and gave him a sly smile from the corner of her mouth. “Girlfriend, huh? Barry, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend! Have I met her or does she go to a different school?” 

 

“O-oh, d-d-dammit I was- I meant that i-in general, like not a specific per--  _ fuck, _ I-I mean I was just trying to-”

 

Lup set a wobbly finger on his lips to shush him. “You were just trying to politely shoot her down. I get it, Barry. I’m just giving you a hard time.” She smiled at him as she drunkenly let her finger stay on his lips for maybe a moment longer than she should have. “I was coming over to rescue you, anyways. Saw you when I was taking a break from dancing and you looked _sooo_ painfully awkward.” Barry’s face reddened and he nervously laughed a bit. _That_ was what a normal awkward Barry looked like. And then she realized something-

 

“Oh shit, Barry — you know what this means…”

 

“I d-don’t I uh…”

 

“Barry; you  _ lied  _ again! The deception! I don’t know what to believe anymore -- Is your name even Barold?”

 

“Well, i-it’s not.” He laughed as he nervously scratched the back of his head. 

 

Lup shook her head in feigned disappointment. “Almost three decades and I don’t even know the  _ real  _ you.” She laughed with him, and then remembered there was something she had been trying to do, and she tried to pull what it was out of the cloudiness in her head. 

 

She had been looking for Barry! That’s what it was. But, Lup forgot why she had gone to seek out Barry in the first place and she stood there staring at him for a moment, trying to remember. Then decided it must have not been that important and shrugged her shoulders. 

 

“So, what are your thoughts on dancing?”

 

“Dancing? I uh -- haven’t? And probably can’t, hah.” 

 

“Wanna try?” Lup extended a hand, offering it to him.

 

“Hoo, boy. Umm, maybe uh -- maybe one more drink?” 

 

Lup laughed. “Yeah, let’s go see what they got!” 

 

***

Merle was standing in a strip of floor near the bar that wasn’t being used for dancing, talking to a dwarven couple, who seemed to be laughing at some sort of joke or story of his that apparently called for him waving his arms wildly. It looked like he was in the middle of something but Taako didn’t really care. He walked up behind Merle, leaned over and tapped him on the shoulder, balancing his fancy neon green drink in his other hand. 

“Hey Merle, c’mere, I gotta ask you somethin’.” 

Merle side-eyed Taako and spoke gruffly from the corner of his mouth at him. “Kinda in the middle of something here.” 

“Pffft, just c’mere for a second, juheez.” 

Merle held a finger up to the couple to indicate that he would be back in a moment before turning and walking a few feet away with Taako. 

“Alright, alright, what’s so damn important?” 

Taako stared at Merle and squinted his eyes. After a moment of silence, he took a sip of his drink. 

“I forgot.” 

Merle threw his arms up in disbelief, then wordlessly turned around to walk back to the couple -- but they were gone. Merle whipped around and stared daggers at Taako, silently gesturing with a frustrated hand at the empty space where the two dwarves once were. 

Taako almost laughed. “Oh come on, you weren’t going to get anywhere and you know it.”

“Yeah I was! They were  _ this  _ close to meeting with me tomorrow for Pan bible study.” 

“Oh.” Taako took another sip of his drink.  _ “That’s  _ what you were doing?”

Merle looked confused. “What else would I be doing?” 

“Who’s doing what?” Magnus appeared behind Taako and was trying to hear what they were saying over the music.

Taako turned around so quickly that some of his drink sloshed out of the glass. “Holy shit, Magnus. How are you so stealthy?”

Magnus shrugged. “So what’s up? What are we grouping up for?” 

Taako leaned in and squinted his eyes at Magnus, as if seeing him better would help him hear better. “What do you even mean by that? Grouping up?”

“Y’know. Just getting the buddies together! We can all dance, or something!” 

Taako looked disgusted, but said nothing. Magnus arched his eyebrows and gave him an expectant, open-mouthed smile. Merle saw Magnus’s face and imitated it. Magnus escalated by adding in a ‘welllll?’ 

Taako rolled his eyes and relented. “Damn, yikes, okay fine. Just don’t get close enough to mess up my outfit, I’m planning on being buried in this.”

They moved as a unit to the dance floor when they caught sight of Lucretia for the first time since they had arrived and split up. She was sitting with someone in a booth who was flipping through a notebook and excitedly showing off the contents. Lucretia seemed absolutely mesmerized with whatever it was that the person was showing her. She pulled out her own journal from the small messenger bag she brought with her that Taako had begged her not to. She started writing with both hands at the same time and the person with her looked like they were losing their entire mind. Drunkenly watching the exchange, Taako wondered --  _ did she just make someone horny by journaling?  _

***

They were waiting to get the bartender’s attention when Barry spotted the man that he had seen talking to Lup earlier in the night walking over. He felt panicky; she was going to leave, she was going to go with him. Their time together having fun was over because she was going to leave with someone who actually knew how to talk without stuttering and knew how to exist in a club and was probably actually fun. He glanced at Lup and saw her mouth curl into a look of disgust.

 

“Ugh, this guy again. Fucking annoying, he has not left me alone all night.” She quickly turned back to the bar and looked at Barry from the side, her smile returning. “Anyways, stranger -- where were we?” Barry chuckled and was about to respond when he saw Lup’s face change abruptly. She whipped around and Barry turned too; the man was standing uncomfortably close behind her. 

 

“Did you just grab my ass!?” Lup’s eyes were flashing with anger, and the guy was drunkenly smiling at her -- he had no idea how fucked he was. 

 

“How about it, ya coming home with me? Can’t go around teasing people with an ass like that.” 

 

Lup had murder in her eyes, and Barry... Barry felt something that he rarely felt, something that he hadn’t had a reason to feel in forever -- he was angry. He was fucking _ furious.  _ Who the hell was this person?  Who the hell was he compared to any of  _ them? _ To  _ her _ _?  _ And while his behavior was unacceptable under any context, if he fucking knew what they had been through for decades to make sure that him and everyone else and their entire  _ existence  _ would have a fighting chance against a world-ending storm… if he knew, he wouldn't  _ dare  _ talk to her like that. 

 

Lup could defend herself. She could defend herself against damn near anything, and this guy... she could turn him to ash with a touch. Barry didn’t know if it would be insulting for him to step in -- she didn’t need him, or anyone, to defend her. 

 

But Lup saw how angry Barry was. She had never seen him angry. She was drunk and rationalized that maybe he  _ should  _ get a little bit of anger out. Maybe that would teach him that he wasn’t weak, that he was actually strong and amazing. He looked at her and she gave him a small nod, and he knew that basically translated to ‘Go for it.’ But he wasn’t going to beat a man’s ass in the middle of a busy club -- conveniently, they were near the back door in a spot that was relatively free of other people. So, Barry grabbed the smug fucker by the back of the collar of his jacket and abruptly yanked him so hard and suddenly that he actually yelped in surprise. He pulled him along, opened the door, pushed him outside, and followed after. Lup was losing her mind -- his face, his posture. Shit, he was actually really intimidating; especially while being so quiet and calm while obviously seething under the surface. It was like his anger sucked the air out of the room. And… damn, he almost lifted the man off of his feet just from a quick grab at his jacket. Fuck. Dammit.  _ Damn. It. Barry.  _ What the hell was she going to do? He was  _ so fucking hot.  _

 

It’s not like she was happy about the situation or happy that Barry was angry and having to deal with something so awful, and she definitely wasn’t happy about what just happened and she very much wished to punch that man with a burning fist herself but… seeing Barry angry… 

She would have left and gone back to the ship on her own to cool off if she didn’t obviously want to stay to see how things turned out. 

 

Almost on cue, he walked back through the door. Then he calmly flipped the lock. And seconds later, there was pounding at the door and yelling that was unintelligible over the music. 

 

“Well? What happened?” Lup’s eyes were wide and she was lightly bouncing up and down, excited to hear. 

 

“I talked to him.” 

 

“Talked to him?”

 

“Yeah. I wanted an apology. And I wanted him to know not to do that to  _ anyone. _ And I told him that I basically saved his life pulling him away from you.” 

 

Lup was trying not to show any disappointment -- why would she want something violent to happen with Barry? 

 

“And…”

 

Lup was tormented by him dragging it out. “And?” 

 

“And… I think his nose is broken. And he definitely has less teeth than before -- how many, I don’t really know.”

 

There wasn’t a scratch on Barry. Not even a hair out of place. She was trying not to foam at the mouth over someone getting their face rearranged and from Barry being angry enough to do something like that. But the guy  _ did  _ deserve it, and she didn’t feel bad for him at all. 

 

“How are you feeling, Barry? I don’t think I’ve seen you even the tiniest bit mad before. And I’ve known you for -- hmmm, I kinda think a while now. It’s a new look.”

 

Barry was drunk and distracted and he couldn’t hear everything Lup said over the music. He still had buckets of adrenaline rushing through him and was angry that something like that happened to Lup. How could anyone dare to treat anyone, let alone the most amazing woman in all of existence like  _ that?  _ How could anyone dare treat her like anything less than the suns of every plane? He made shaky, inebriated eye contact with Lup and took both of her hands in his.

 

“That was… so wrong. That that happened to you. A-and, I know that you can defend yourself. I - I probably shouldn’t have done anything.” He was so close to her -- he had to be if they were going to hear each other but still -- he was  _ so close to her.  _

 

She frowned and wobbled a bit, barely even noticing that he was holding her hands. “What do you mean you shouldn’t have done anything?”

 

He dropped her hands and shook his head, panicking. “No- no! Lup I mean -- I was thinking that I might insult you, you’re obviously stronger than me and- fuck, it’s so loud in here-”

 

She set a hand on his shoulder and said his name like a warning, “Barry. It doesn’t matter who’s stronger. I thought that you... y-you’ve said that you always wanted to be there for me,” she felt strangely emotional and her voice quavered.  _ Damn booze.  _

 

Barry was petrified and didn’t know what to say or do. Lup looked  _ sad, disappointed,  _ and he was the one that had made her feel like that. His first impulse was to quietly apologize and then give her space, but obviously his impulses and his apologies were not to be trusted. And she expected him to be there for her, she actually  _ wanted _ him to be there, so what kind of friend would he be if he walked away after that? So, instead he decided he should tell himself to fuck off for a minute and do the opposite of his impulses. 

 

He scooped her up into a hug; a close one, a confident one. The type of hug that she had given him many times before, but that he felt unable to return.

 

“You’re right,” was all he said close to her ear, over the noise of the crowd and music. She was surprised, and then emotional again. She leaned into his hug, dipped her head and buried her face into him. And without thinking, she murmured ‘Gods, I love you’ into his chest. Barry couldn’t hear anything over the noise, and wouldn’t have even been able to tell that she had spoken if it hadn’t been for feeling the vibrations of her voice. What did she say? He pulled back a bit so that they were looking at each other and tried to ask her what she said over the noise, but the night was nearing an end, and they were going all out with the music. He tried to mouth ‘I didn’t hear you’ and pointed at his ear. She smiled and shook her head and gave a dismissive wave as to say ‘nevermind’. But she was excited. She got to say it out loud, right next to him,  _ while in his arms.  _ It wasn’t heard and it wasn’t going to change anything, but she was smiling about it anyways and made sure that she thought about it over and over so that she wouldn’t lose a single detail after sobering up. 

 

***

 

Back on board the ship in their room, the twins drunkenly filled each other in on what happened earlier in the night for each of them. 

 

“-and he was -- he was just so so  _ sooo  _ into me, Lu. You shoulda seen it, I was like -- I could have told him  _ anything, _ he woulda done it. Got me all my drinks for the night and-”

 

“Did ya make out with him?” Lup grinned, eyes only half open.

 

_ “Of course I made out with him,  _ what do I look like? Some- like, some bookworm -- dork-ass nerd who doesn’t like fun? I’m not  _ Barry.”  _

 

Lup elbowed him and laughed. “You didn’t see Barry tonight! He was so -- he was different, he was trying stuff and -- he had this hot lady hitting on him and-”

 

Taako shot up, his posture straightening and eyes wide with shock. “He  _ what?” _

 

“Yeah, I had t’go save him-”

 

Taako grinned.  _ “Save him? _ You mean get her to step off of your man?” 

 

“Oh my goddds, c’mon don’t call me out like that, I’m your sisterrr,” Lup whined at Taako. “Anyways, listen to me! Listen, also he punched a dude and-”   
  


“He WHAT?!” 

 

“Yeah! Right?!” Lup was giddy and clasped her hands together. 

 

“What the hell happened?” 

 

“This guy -- this  _ fuckin’ _ guy walks up while I was tryin’ to order a drink and he grabbed my ass.”

Taako instantly looked enraged. “And he said something rude or - I don’t really remember, but yeah.” 

 

“And you didn’t immediately burn his hair off?” 

 

“No, ‘cuz Barry looked  _ so mad, _ like just so so super mad and I was! I have never seen that! So I just let him go for it.”

 

“And he punched the guy?” 

 

“Dragged him outside by the collar of his jacket and broke his nose. It was fucking badass.” Lup sighed as she recalled the incident, and everything that followed after.

 

“Holy shit.” Taako looked serious all of a sudden. Barry was there for her when he was on the other side of the bar making out with a tall hunk. He was grateful. “How did you not jump his bones on the spot?”   
  


Lup covered her face with both of her hands and then dragged them down with a feeling of exasperated disappointment. “Because I caaan’t.” She flopped down backwards onto the bed and looked away from Taako, towards the wall. “He doesn’t like me like that.” 

 

“Oh my fuck, Lup. You really think that?” Taako was drunkenly close to spilling Barry’s secret, but -- his appreciation of Barry had grown a lot. He actually wanted to respect the conversation they had, and he stood by what he told him before; they had time to figure it out, to get it right. But, he wasn’t going to hold on to that secret forever if his sister started to get miserable. But also, how in the hell could she think that someone like Barry  _ wouldn’t  _ be head over heels for her? 

 

“I just… I don’t want to lose him as a friend. And we’re all so close here and can’t get away from each other. It could turn out really bad.” 

 

Taako nodded quietly; he had to agree. He didn’t want anything to get fucked up any more than anyone else did. He’d had that whole bitter situation with Davenport and it was  _ the worst  _ dealing with that sort of energy in a place where you had every meal with the same people, worked with them all day, and then spent your free time with them in the evening. It had become everybody’s problem. There was no room for interpersonal mistakes. 

 

But, counterpoint: he was drunk and he wanted to gossip and he wanted to tell her sooo badly. He’d be lying if he wasn’t curious to see how it would turn out, good or bad. Of course, if his sister got her heart broken, he would have to polymorph Barry into a rat or something. 

 

But,  _ how in the hell could she possibly think that Barry fuckin’ Bluejans wouldn’t like her? _ What the hell were they even doing when they spent entire days together that would make either of them not realize what was going on between them? They were both supposed to be smart people; Taako couldn’t wrap his head around how fuckin’ oblivious they were. They had time, but no one knew for sure how much more they might have… it seemed like those two might need literally forever, and it was going to kill him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beautiful fanart by Blueoceanarts on Tumblr from the scene with Barry hugging Lup
> 
> https://blueoceanarts.tumblr.com/post/184492778929/inspired-by-chapter-27-of-before-the-century-was


	28. Down to the Bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Twenty Eight

 

The light fell from the sky while Lup was on lookout in the dead of night. It didn’t land far from them, and it was straight ahead from where the Starblaster was already pointed. Rather than feeling excited though, she felt tired. It was a good thing -- good to know where it was, to be able to have a lead on where to look for it. But who knew what would be there waiting for them when they went after it. What else might find it first and be changed by it? Who was going to die that year, who were they going to watch get sick or injured or poisoned or dashed upon rocks at the bottom of a cliff? And even if there was none of that, who was going to be impacted by the  light the worst over the rest of the year? 

 

Her and Barry would be around it a lot, that was for sure. She would end up hiding how much it disturbed her because he would already be struggling with it enough as it was. She knew it was safe to share her feelings and thoughts with him, safe to share her fears with him; but he was so integral to figuring things out. She had taken it upon herself to make sure that whenever they had the light, he was doing well enough emotionally to get as much work done on it as possible. If she let on that she was also scared, it might make him spiral. She only said enough to commiserate with him, to make sure that he didn’t feel singled out or isolated; but not enough to alarm him. She hated having it on the ship as much as anyone else did. They had promised to have transparent communication between each other about it and… she felt bad, but she could tell what the atmosphere around Barry was like whenever they had the light, and she knew what would make it better or worse. And she wanted him to be okay, to feel like things were safe so that he could focus on work. First, because she wanted whatever was best for Barry, of course. But also, she wanted to get some fucking answers already, and maybe answers could be found somewhere in the light. 

 

***

 

Lup and Barry went over their old notebooks before heading out into the world to gather their samples and start their work. They made a habit of looking over notes from prior years to remind themselves of things that they had learned about interacting with alien worlds, as well as to look for any sort of patterns. They strived to improve their approach to their work with each year; to learn more, to gain more skills. Maybe if they could just  _ be  _ better, they could find something, or maybe they could grow strong enough to  _ do  _ something. Or if they at least just stayed sharp, observant, maybe they could find some common thread or pattern, some reason for them ending up on the planes they were ending up on. Maybe something that would lead to an answer about the Hunger -- what  _ was  _ it about the behavior of the light that made it determine where to go and when and in what order? What about it had the Hunger following it? Why did the Hunger always take a year to catch up with them, why did the Hunger want to consume the light, why did it  _ need  _ to consume it every year on every plane, and why did it have to take the entire plane with it? What were the figures and shapes that emerged from the pillars and crawled all over the worlds? 

 

It felt like they only ever gained more questions and found no answers. 

 

On top of all of the ever present questions running through her head, Lup had a lot on her mind after the last year of theirs. It had been impossible to get anyone on that world to help with anything, and when they talked about the potential apocalypse, the people living there didn’t seem bothered. They were even a bit sarcastically interested. The occupants of that plane had a very nihilistic viewpoint, and they seemed to feel that continuing to live their lives, versus being undone from existence, were two concepts close enough to each other to not care which was which. The crew hadn’t been able to save the plane, which was always hard to deal with. But her family was a comfort. And she had especially found a lot of comfort in Barry. 

 

He had been so passionate in helping her seek aid from the locals that last year. Every bit of work they did together inside and outside was meaningful, even when things didn’t work out. Nothing they ever did together felt tepid or useless or futile; they always put the full force of their cumulative knowledge and skill behind every task they performed, and they had become so in sync over the years that working with Barry felt as natural as breathing. She knew that he worried about his usefulness, about keeping up with everyone else; he had such high standards for himself. But, as unsure of himself as he could be sometimes, there were those moments in their work where he moved and spoke with such natural confidence and authority; she always took notice and loved seeing it every time. 

 

***

 

Every time he tried to conjure up the memory of that significant moment between him and Lup the year before, Barry cursed himself for drinking that night. The feeling of her in his arms was too fuzzy to replay in his head accurately. He wanted to remember it in greater detail, because it might not -- probably would not, happen again. 

 

But, he needed to stop getting distracted. Their work was important; to him, to Lup, to all of them. 

 

Their world for the year had so far seemed empty, though it was riddled with evidence of a once grand society with a rich culture. The crumbling buildings were of a uniquely beautiful style of architecture that used wood reinforced with bands of gold interspersed between long bricks of brightly polished slate grey and white stone. The buildings were massive and tall though from the inside, they all looked to only be one story and were often only a single room. The interiors were overrun with vines and flowers and were only made more beautiful by the water and sunshine that simultaneously dripped through the holes in the ceilings and sent sparkling, prismatic dots of rippling light across the reflective polished stone walls. They found vases and paintings and sculptures scattered everywhere, all of the highest artistic talent and made with loving attention to detail. They found gem-laden armor, elaborate pieces of jewelry, thrones, crowns, some mostly decayed clothing made of layers upon layers of delicate, colorful fabrics, all encrusted with shining stones. 

 

There was one curious common theme, though… every  sculpture and painting and mural only ever depicted skeletons. And some of the skeletal remains that they found wearing jewelry were wearing long pieces that started encircled around the neck, and then had strings of jewels cascading down the front, wrapped through each rib. Some skeletons even had small jewels embedded in patterns along the arm bones. At first, they assumed that the society had a sort of reverence or system of worship surrounding death and that when they buried their dead, they decked them out in jewelry. But then, Barry found something interesting. 

 

“There’s no periosteum -- I mean, obviously this place could have entirely different rules of biology, but…”

 

Lup perked up. “But?” 

 

“There’s also no canals in the bones.” Barry moved away from the microscope that he had been quietly peering into. “I think it could mean that these were just always skeletons. That there was never anything -- I guess,  _ on  _ them. Definitely nothing that required a circulatory system.” 

 

Lup clapped her hands. “Ooh! Skelly people!” She looked absolutely delighted and danced over to the microscope to take a look. 

 

Barry rubbed the back of his neck and smiled wide at Lup’s reaction. “Hah, yeah! I think it’s pretty cool, too.” 

 

Taako was in the lab with them; he had started to occasionally visit them as they worked for short periods of time until he got bored. He recoiled in disgust at Barry’s discovery, and then even more at the reaction that the two of them shared. 

 

_ “That... _ is horrifying. You two are monsters.” Taako hopped down from his seat on the counter of the work space. “Well, I’m creeped. I’m gonna go see what Maggie’s doing. _ ” _

 

“Suit yourself,” Lup waved a hand at him without looking away from the microscope. 

 

“Fuuuck, this is so rad.” She finally backed away from the microscope after an extended examination. “I always love looking at bone under the ‘scope. It’s really pretty, actually.” 

 

Barry smiled. Lup was so fucking cool. “Yeah. It’s the neatest.” 

 

***

 

He was often tempted to just get it over with. To allow it to slip out so that he could let go of the unbearable heaviness of his secret. 

His thoughts were still frequently self defeating, self effacing. He felt like an embarrassment, being in love with someone so impossibly wonderful and beyond him in every way. He should just get it out of the way, get rejected so that he could stop imagining series of ‘what-ifs’ and keeping himself up at night. 

 

But, they did spend all of their time together. She was always so happy around him, and she had leaned on him more than once. He had the incredible gift of being there for her in so many meaningful and important ways. As much as he couldn’t comprehend it, didn’t dare to believe it because all he would do is crush himself -- he wondered if there was some sort of small possibility. Or at the very least, that maybe it was  _ okay  _ for him to love her, and he could take comfort and happiness from that. They were definitely close, and as strong as she was and as much as he couldn’t believe it, she actually seemed to need him sometimes. And of course, even if he hadn’t been madly in love with her, he would do anything she needed; who wouldn’t for someone like Lup? 

 

But his love for her had made him warm, made him motivated to be someone that she could depend on, made him into someone who didn’t slack off or hide from people anymore. He was no longer avoidant of certain situations because of a fear of falling up short, of not being as good as someone else might be. He was actually becoming someone that was sometimes an asset to her, so... maybe loving her really was a good thing, and he could continue to hold on to his secret without pain or guilt. 

 

But what if it didn’t have to be a secret for forever; what if there  _ could  _ be something? Imagining it, imagining actually being with her, having feelings returned -- it was torture. And he tortured himself often. 

But, they were always together and always happy; that was already so close to being  _ something,  _ so maybe...

 

Barry remembered something that Taako had told him years before; they had time.  _ He  _ had time. And if all he ever did with that time for the rest of eternity was love Lup, even in secret -- that would be the greatest possible use of time that there had ever been. 

 

He could keep it hidden. He knew he could do it, it would be fine, and it would be better to keep it to himself. He wouldn’t die from carrying around such a heavy secret, such a monumental amount of love. And, even if it did kill him, he would be back the next year anyways. Back to loving Lup so much that it felt like he was trapped in quicksand with a weight heavier than any world they had set foot on living in the hollow of his chest. 

 

***

 

Taako, Lucretia and Magnus headed out early in the morning to continue the work of looking for the light. They had spent a week searching everywhere they could in the direction where Lup had seen it land, but it was proving difficult to actually find the thing. 

 

Lucretia was enjoying the frequent outings and was joining in every day to search, rather than rotating out like everyone else was. She was fascinated by the world and was particularly interested in trying to chronicle the history of the planet. She wanted to put its story together as much as possible, to record the secrets of the fallen skeletal society. 

 

She wandered through the patch of ruined buildings that they were searching, looking for any way to piece together some kind of story from the cryptic carvings and drawings scattered all throughout the surviving marble walls of temples long toppled. She broke off into her own direction and made her way into the structure that her and Taako were circling. He was trying to pick up any sort of magical energy while Magnus, a little ways away from the ruins, scanned the horizon with binoculars. It was early evening, and things were just starting to darken outside; the perfect time to look for a light source without being risky and staying outside in the pitch dark. They had a camp set up nearby and were planning on doing just a little bit more work before turning in. But Magnus was already getting tired and frustrated; he walked over to where Taako was searching to let him know that he was going to head back to their campsite a little early and get the fire started.

 

...

 

Inside a building with a shattered dome ceiling, Lucretia excitedly walked towards what looked like a mostly intact altar; a long one that extended across the entirety of the interior. Closer to it, she could see engravings and paintings depicting an army of skeletons gathered at the feet of one behemoth skeleton, at least five times as tall as the others and with a large, loose cloth draped around it. She walked along the altar, seeing more and more depictions of what looked like the preparation of a battle. And then there was the actual battle scene -- a crowd of skeletons, with the behemoth at the center, approaching what looked like a simple mountain range. There were several scenes that showed what looked like humanoid figures emerging from all around the base of the mountain, revealing that the rocks and boulders there were actually heads peeking above the ground. 

 

She was so transfixed by the illustrations, trying to imagine how she was going to put into words what the story seemed to be. She didn't notice that near the end of the altar, the ground was decorated with a pattern of sharp bone spurs, sticking straight up out of the stone. 

 

The last phase of the story on the long altar led into a dark corner of the disheveled temple; the wall opposite it drew close, making a narrow pathway that Lucretia had planned on squeezing her way through. But, as she approached the thin opening, she felt a sharp pain in the bottom of her foot and was stopped in her tracks. 

 

There was something at the end of the story that wasn’t meant to be seen. But Lucretia couldn’t be curious anymore; a bone spur had penetrated through the bottom of her shoe, into her foot and out the other side. She tried not to scream, tried not to panic; she just shakily grabbed her stone from her pocket and called Taako and Magnus for help. 

 

Luckily, Taako was still fairly close outside to where she had wandered off to. He turned heel and ran to the building where he had last seen Lucretia. Peering around carefully from just outside the door and calling out her name, Taako waited for a response and heard nothing. Stepping inside, he made his way towards the back of the building, following the long altar with its various peaks and triptychs that eventually disappeared into a narrow hallway. He saw something.

 

In the dark corner in between the altar and the wall, Taako couldn’t quite make out the form that he saw there, cowering and shaking. The form was obscured by fallen stones, but he thought it might be Lucretia. He could see that something was wrong, and he felt sick. 

 

“Hey, Luc? You alright?” 

 

She crawled out from the shadows, across the sharp bits of bone, ignoring them completely as they stabbed into her hands and knees. As she came fully into view, Taako saw that large hunks of her flesh were sloughing off of her arms and falling out of the sleeves of her robe. He watched in horror as half of her face melted away and the wet flesh hit the floor. He stood shocked, not knowing how to respond when suddenly, in a flurry of jerky motions, she stood and ran at him. He put his hands out in front of himself and she desperately grabbed at them before he could cast anything or try to push her away. The bone spurs that had broken off of the floor into her hands stabbed through his palms as she firmly grasped at them, pleading with him for help while her body fell to pieces.

 

...

 

Sitting in a corner, shaking and holding his knees against himself, his face spasming and his brain overheating, Taako fished his stone out of his pocket. He saw the last of Lucretia, a mostly skeletal figure with her red robe loosely slung over her bones, as she staggered out of the ruined door of the building and into the night. He had the stone at his lips but before he could sound out a single word, the flesh around his lower jaw and mouth melted away and dripped onto the crimson fabric of his robe. 

 

***

 

It had been hours upon hours since they heard from Taako, Magnus, or Lucretia. Barry wasn’t going to just sit there and watch her worry herself sick. He was going to help Lup, no matter what that meant. So, they put together their camping supplies and set out in the middle of the night. They decided to call in on their stones in the morning to Davenport, and use the fact that he had been asleep when they left as an excuse for leaving without notice. They knew full well that was a bullshit excuse, and that Davenport would know that too, but they went for it anyways. Because Barry had promised her something; they were going to either find Taako… or find out what happened to him, and they were doing it that night. 

 

Once they were outside of the ship, Lup looked over to Barry with a partially sly, but still sad and worried smile. 

 

“Thanks, Blue.” She paused -- she didn’t know where that came from. She tried to laugh it off. “Hah, weird. Guess that’s a new nickname.” 

 

She sounded all at once soft and hollow; foggy and barely present -- and that was probably where the partial utterance of his last name came from. He didn’t dare think of it as something affectionate. It was a slip. She was tired, she was worried, and they had miles of exhausting hiking in front of them. There was nothing to be happy about. 

 

...

 

They found Magnus slumped against a wall outside of a ruined building with his head in his hands. When he heard the sound of footsteps approaching he looked up, startled. He had obviously been crying. Not far from the mouth of the entrance to the building, they saw a red robe on the ground with a skeletal hand reaching out from the sleeve. 

 

Magnus was silent and they didn’t press him to speak. It was already obvious to them that he was the only one alive. Barry and Lup walked in a daze as they made their way inside the building. They saw another red robe sitting against the wall, propped up by the skeleton inside of it. They saw stains running down the front of the robe and chunks of liquefied flesh lying on the floor all around it. 

 

...

 

Barry and Lup followed Magnus to the campsite and started to put up their own tents after taking down Taako’s and Lucretia’s. It was maybe a waste of time to take down tents that were exactly like their own rather than just use them, but it felt wrong to sleep in their spaces right after having buried them. As hard as it was to do anything, they needed to get set up so that they could sleep before heading back. And they all needed a moment to cope with having just finished burying members of their family. Magnus was already curled up and snoring in his tent; he went straight to bed without a word after the burial and willed himself to sleep, just so that time would pass. 

 

As Barry and Lup stood at opposite ends of the campsite, setting up their individual spaces, Barry heard muffled sobbing coming from behind him. She was trying so hard not to be heard, but it didn’t work. He dropped the pieces of tent frame that he was holding and they clattered to the ground. He turned to where Lup stood, facing away from him. She had abandoned building her tent and was instead holding cupped hands over her mouth, trying not to shake and heave with every sob. Barry walked closer and stood behind her, panicking, not sure what to do, feeling like a fool just standing there watching as she uncontrollably sobbed. He moved forward, about to set a hand on her shoulder, thinking of something he could say, but thinking that maybe not saying anything would be the better thing to do. 

 

She seemed to get smaller, like she was shrinking in on herself, curling inward around the heavy ball of sadness buried in her chest. He went from hovering one hand near her shoulder to instead extending both arms and wrapping them around her from behind. She was startled, but then realized that it was Barry, that he was holding her, and she lowered her hands to grab at his as they clasped around in front of her. With her hands no longer covering her mouth, she let out one deep, choked sob and upon hearing it, he held on to her tighter. She wormed around to turn towards him while staying in his arms, and she let her head fall onto his shoulder. He curled his arms around her more and lifted a hand to cradle the back of her head as she leaned into him and wept. He felt so fiercely protective of her and would have done absolutely anything to save her from her sorrow; the need to do something, anything for her burned in the pit of his chest. 

 

He didn’t know that she was so grateful already. Grateful to have a shoulder to cry on, to feel comfortable being openly sad. He didn’t know that giving her a safe spot to be vulnerable, to grieve, was the greatest thing he could give her in that moment. 

 

***

 

Their hike back was mostly silent but once they were on the Starblaster, Magnus talked to Lup about Taako and Lucretia, about how he wished he had been able to protect them, about his guilt over going back to the campsite while they were still exploring -- and about how upsettingly horrific the sight of their skeletal remains was. He encircled Lup in a strong hug as they cried together in the lab, with Barry being the only other person around. Upon returning, they all had needed a moment to themselves after their experience together. 

 

Barry thought back on conversations with Lup about what her life was like when her and Taako were on the road, alone. She had only ever had him; and he was amazing of course, and was already so much more than what most people got to have in their lives. But, now Lup had a whole family; she had other people who could support and console her, had more hands to hold, more shoulders to cry on, more hugs to receive -- Barry was so thankful for it. And he was thankful that he got to be one fifth of that support system, that family, for her.  

 

***

“Are you… are you okay, Lup?” Barry was distressed. She looked bad as she walked slowly, none of the usual bounce in her step, into the common room with a cup of coffee that had started to go cold. She shuffled over and sat down next to Barry on the couch.

 

“Yeah, I’m-” Lup paused for a moment and looked towards her feet, her eyes hazy. “I’m okay. It’s just that it already feels like he’s been gone for a long time. And it’s going to be so much longer and… I’m just… I’m feeling kind of lost.” 

 

She looked tired. Her hair had obviously been in the same braid for a while and bits of it were falling loose or scrunched up unevenly on one side. She was still -- ethereally beautiful, of course, but Barry felt a heaviness in the pit of his stomach as he looked at her and at the way she was exuding sadness. 

 

“How can I help, Lup?” Barry’s voice was sincere and soft and she melted at his gentleness. But she didn’t know how to answer. He regarded her with concern as she sat there silently, and she felt bad for worrying him. 

 

“I don’t know. I think I’m just going to be a mess for a while.” She tried to laugh, but it came out weak and thin. “I haven’t even really had the energy to fix my hair. Usually Taako and I do it for each other. I must look awful.” 

 

He thought for a moment, then leaned closer to her, almost whispering as if her sadness was a secret. “You don’t look awful, of course. But, if it would make you feel better, uh, I- I could, uh -- help braid your hair? If you told me how?” 

 

She did her best to choke back tears, to try and sound normal. Everything Barry ever did or said to her was always so kind and thoughtful, but whenever she was having a hard time, he somehow found ways to offer her even more through the smallest of gestures and through the softness of his voice. 

 

“Yeah. That would be nice. Thank you Barry.” 

 

They got up from the couch instinctually, without planning what to do or where to go first, and they looked at each other blankly. 

 

“I uh…” Lup was having trouble holding on to thoughts for more than a few seconds.

 

“Where do you want to go?” Barry knew what she was trying to think and say, and during her grief, he had been so helpful in getting her head back on track every time she lost where she was going or what she was thinking. 

 

“Yeah, let’s… I, umm. I don’t want to be in my room.”

 

Barry nodded. “We can go to the lab, we could stay here, we could go outside.” He wasn’t about to dare say his own room, even though of course that was an option. 

 

And that was the option that Lup wanted. “Can we go to your room? I don’t really want to see or be seen by anyone right now.” 

 

“Of course, Lup.” 

 

Even though the context would be different than any other time, considering the situation and the heavy sadness around it, he was still nervous to have Lup in his room. But, that feeling washed away as soon as he turned to open his door for her and saw how much her face had changed as he led the way down the hall. She looked somehow even more tired and so obviously, deeply wracked with pain that she wasn’t trying to hide anymore. She blankly walked into his room while he held the door open for her, and then he followed her inside.

 

“What’s uh -- the best way to do this? If you want to sit in the chair, I can stand behind you?” 

 

Lup wordlessly moved to his bed, climbed on and sat at the end furthest from him, cross legged, with her back to him. He paused -- then figured that must have been how she was used to getting her hair braided. He walked over and followed her lead, situating himself to be sitting cross legged behind her on the bed. She remained silent, and he reached for the end of her braid and fumbled with untying the ribbon that it was secured with. Once it was loose, he gently started to unweave the handfuls of hair from around each other, moving slowly, making sure not to accidentally even slightly pull on a single hair. Moving up the braid, the handfuls grew thicker and the trails of hair below meant that he had to use the entire length of his arms to unravel, pull away, and straighten out each piece as he undid them. Once he was at her shoulders, he was brushing up against her neck with the back of his hands every few seconds as he worked behind her and she shivered, almost coming out of her stupor for a moment. She started to focus on the feeling of Barry rhythmically undoing her braid instead of on the hurt in her chest. She felt the hands of the person that she loved caring for her so intimately, felt the tightness melt off of her scalp as the braid loosened.

 

Lup’s loose hair piled itself onto his lap as he worked the frazzled locks apart. Once it was finished, Barry sat there, not knowing what to do next. Lup was still despondent and unresponsive. 

 

He leaned over and put a gentle hand on her shoulder to get her attention. “What should I do now?” 

 

She thought for a moment. She didn’t really care about having her hair braided again. She felt loose and limp and undone, and she realized that she wanted her hair to be the same. She didn’t know how to answer Barry, how to put into words why she didn’t want to do the thing that they had come into his room to do anymore. She didn’t know how to explain that she was just not able to instruct him in anything at that moment, that she was too tired and torn up to think or speak. She sensed him close behind her, leaning over so that he could hear her when or if she spoke. But instead of talking, she leaned back and limply settled against Barry. He kept still, letting her lay against him, not knowing what else to do. He kept his back stiff so that he wouldn’t move her at all — but the position was awkward and his back started to bother him. He shifted slightly, doing his best not to jostle her, trying to get more comfortable, hating that he had to move while Lup was in need of rest and comfort. She sat up after he shifted and he felt terrible. But then she turned a bit, setting a hand into the mattress behind her and looking at him from the corner of her eye. “It’s okay if not, but -- could I just lie in here for a while?” 

 

“O-of course, uh -- c-can I get you anything? Or umm… I can just get out of here and let you rest.” 

 

She turned all the way around, scooting to face him. “Would you be okay with staying with me?” 

 

Barry’s heart was gripped by the way she looked at him. “Y-yes.” 

 

She looked down at the mattress for a long moment before straightening, and as she was about to lean back into the pillows at the head of the bed, she looked dolefully at Barry, her eyes large and deep with exhaustion. She reached out a hand and lightly hooked a finger over the collar of his shirt, giving it two quick tugs before letting go and leaning back. He got her message and moved toward her, in the direction of her tugging, and as she fell back into the pillows, he leaned forward and lied down next to her. He left several inches between them, and kept his arm pressed near himself and his other arm under his own head as he lay on his side facing her. She looked into his eyes before inching closer and tugging on the finger of his hand so that he would put his arm around her. She sighed deeply and cuddled up next to him, putting her face into his chest, centered perfectly so that his chin was resting on the top of her head. 

 

“Barry…”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Is this okay? Can we just… I just need…” she squeezed her eyes together, trying not to cry. 

 

“Of course, Lup.” He put his arm fully around her and drew her even closer. 

 

He knew he was just helping her, just comforting her, just filling a space, that it was a special circumstance and it was for an incredibly sad reason and that there was nothing to be happy about. But he couldn’t help but be filled with warmth from her presence in his bed and his arm around her and her pressed close to him. His heart lightly raced, and his guilt cropped up -- he  _ should not  _ be nervous or happy or having any reaction at all that involved his feelings. That would be incredibly selfish. What was happening meant nothing more than him being her friend and her needing a friend. 

  
  


It was hard for her to enjoy being so close to him as much as she would have been able to under different circumstances. But she still appreciated it, appreciated  _ him,  _ so much. She took notice of his breathing and relaxed as her breath fell in line and they developed a synchronized rhythm between them. It was the most comforting thing, them pressed against each other, fitting together like they were made to hold each other, to lie against each other. 

 

For the first time in days, with her head against Barry, she fell asleep. 


	29. Old With Wandering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Twenty Nine

  
  


From the deck of the Starblaster, they watched as groups of children ran along the ledges that zig zagged all of the way down a sheer cliffside. At every ledge in the wall of stone, there were multiple cave openings where the inhabitants of the planet resided. They were essentially primitive humans, but with a few strange things about them -- they were incredibly intelligent and easy to talk to what with knowing common just days after being born, but they had never gotten very far in the way of advancing their society beyond living in caves. And the sad reason for that was that they didn’t live for very long; they aged incredibly, seemingly impossibly fast. As the crew was sitting with a group of them to talk, they watched as the baby in the home they were visiting went from being unable to do anything but lie on its back to turning over and crawling, its hair growing out over the course of a couple hours.

 

When the crew spoke with the small community, they were intending to ask for help with finding the light -- but they realized it wasn’t fair to ask them for anything that would take time out of their very short lives. They simply told them about the light and asked them to let the crew know if they saw anything. 

 

Finding the light wasn’t their biggest problem that year, though. The most pressing issue was that the rapid aging wasn’t simply part of the DNA of the people who lived there; it was some sort of effect that the planet had on living things. And the crew was not exempt from that effect. 

 

...

 

By the end of their first week, Barry’s hair had gone from slightly graying roots to almost entirely silver. That was the biggest difference at first; other than that, he felt a little sore sometimes, had to take more frequent breaks from work, experienced some aching in his back if he spent too long sitting down… but he was mostly okay and his work with Lup continued as usual.

 

In their second week, Magnus and Lucretia were middle-aged and starting to develop some small physical complaints. Barry’s hair was steadily lightening from gray to white and it started to sink in; they were going to be dying. Very soon. They were all frightened and trying to piece together some sort of math to approach the situation with, trying to figure out about how many years it looked like they were all aging and whether anyone was going to be able to survive the year. It was unfortunately the easiest to tell an approximate measure of years aged by looking at  Barry’s progress; within just a few weeks, he tipped over the edge from mature to elderly. They estimated that the planet was causing them to age somewhere around the equivalent of ten years a week.

 

***

 

Barry struggled to breathe as he stood up from the couch. 

 

“I’m pretty tired.” 

 

Lup nodded. “I understand. Want me to walk you to your room?” 

 

Barry pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut. “Fuck, I -- yeah. I hate that I need all this help.” 

 

“It’s not your fault, Bear.” She carefully linked her arm through his and led him out of the common room and down the hall. She opened his bedroom door for him and then once they reached his bedside, she pulled the sheets aside and helped him into bed.

 

“Do you need more blankets?” She could see him shivering. He hesitated, looking like he was going to wave it off, not wanting to bother her. She saw it in his eyes and knew better than to wait for a reply; she left to get him a thick blanket from the storage room. 

 

She felt so much tenderness as she spread the blanket over him, making sure that his feet were covered, checking that he was comfortable, hearing his gravelly voice grow hushed and strained as he answered her questions about how he was feeling. She didn’t want to watch him die. But she knew she was going to be at his side as much as possible until he did. She was going to see it whether she wanted to or not.

 

***

 

“Why didn’t you tell us that you found it?”

 

Taako, Lup and Magnus visited the humans again after Lup saw glowing coming from the cliffside in the middle of the night. Barry had insisted on sitting out on the deck with her -- he was getting close to not being able to do much of anything anymore, and he desperately wanted to be able to spend at least some time with her before he was bedridden and even more forgetful. As much as he didn’t want to think about it, it was happening and it was happening fast. They sat in the deck lounge chairs, a blanket over Barry’s legs, and they talked, mostly joking around and trying to keep things light despite the obvious darkness hanging over them. Lup was about to bring the conversation around to a more serious tone and thank Barry for all of his support in the previous year after Taako’s disturbing death, but then she saw the familiar beautiful glow appear from nowhere, like it had just been uncovered by someone in a cave on the cliffside. She decided to tell him later. 

  
  


They found the light in one of the caves with a group of humans sitting around it, weeping. Magnus was gravely concerned, but Taako just felt fed up. He wanted to get it over with and get out of there with what they came for.

 

“So, I know it’s gonna suck, but we’ve got to take this thing. Trust us, it’s much better for you if we do.” 

 

An elderly man, someone that they had known as a much younger man just a couple weeks before, looked up from the light to them. His voice was loud but raspy and hollow, like it was covered in dust. 

 

“Life is supposed to be so much longer. We know that now. We don’t have enough time, never have enough time to create. The longer a life is, the more potential there is for creation, for love, for growth and change. But, we’re cut down so quickly. Even you two,” he waved a broad hand at Taako and Lup, “you’ve barely aged since you’ve arrived here but still, even you don’t have enough time. The only way there could ever be enough time to create everything that should be created, to love as long as love is supposed to last, is to live forever.”

 

Magnus empathized with them, wanted them to have everything they wanted, and was touched by their desire to live and to love, but he knew what would happen if they left without the light.  He moved towards them, readying himself to nab it. 

 

“This thing is no good, you really don’t want it here. Please trust us.” 

 

The group of humans panicked as he approached the light and they huddled around it, putting themselves between the light and Magnus. 

 

“But we want to live… if you take this from us, we won’t get to live, we’ll shrink and die.”

 

Taako stiffened and looked over at Lup, half wanting her to haul off and scare them away with a fiery show of power so they could get the retrieval over with. Seeing that she was just as concerned as Magnus, he quickly gave up on that idea and moved towards the frightened group of humans, instead. 

 

“Listen, not only are you all going to die, but there won’t even be a planet here anymore for anyone else to get old and die on if we don’t take this with us.” 

 

They only gathered together tighter, protecting the light with their bodies and the oldest spoke up once more. 

 

“Maybe that’s just as well. This is no existence worth having if it isn’t enough to create and to feel the kind of love that can only be built upon a lifetime a thousandfold longer than our own. The light can give us all of that. Without it, there’s no point.” 

 

Taako sighed; what could he say in order to explain that he knew better than them? That they shouldn’t want their planet and their lives destroyed, that it was just the light telling them how to feel?

 

“Well then… why don’t you just let us take it? Since you’re in a kinda damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario and all. Except that you’re way more damned if you don’t give it to us, what with your reality being dissolved and all that.”

 

As they stood fast, unaffected by Taako’s words, Magnus felt desperate to get them to understand. 

 

“If you make even a small mark while you’re alive, that’s a bit of you that will live on, you know? You don’t need endless time to make an impact or to love strongly. Love isn’t quantified by time! And you don’t need the light to do any of that.”

 

The old man lowered and shook his head. 

 

“That’s easy for you to say when you have so much time ahead of you. Not enough, but still more than us.” 

 

Lup saw the look Taako was giving her and she was also starting to feel impatient enough to do something a little more assertive. They had to do what was best for the plane, despite what its inhabitants felt. She lit up a hand with flame and approached the group. She felt awful threatening them, but she needed to scare them off, for just a minute so that they could grab the light, get back to the ship, and move elsewhere before an angry mob was formed.

 

“You need to just get out of here and let us take this, understand?” She did her best to will her face to be cold and stern and to not show how worried and saddened she was. But the group didn’t move. 

 

“Really?” Taako huffed. “You’ll just let yourselves get burned up for this stupid fucking light?” 

 

Magnus was shaken; he knew that Lup wouldn’t hurt them, but the scene was still upsetting to watch. 

 

The old man’s eyes were steely as he stared directly into Lup’s. “Either we die right now by your hand, or we die soon if you take it. Everything ends in death; everything except for the light.” 

 

Lup let her hand fall to her side and the flame flickered out. After regarding them with sadness for a moment, she exhaled roughly, threw her hands up in frustration, and turned to exit the cave. Taako looked perplexed as he followed her outside. 

 

“Where are you going? Are we really going to leave without it?” 

 

“Taako, you know I’m not going to actually hurt them, right?” Lup continued to walk, angry but decisive about letting it go. Taako followed after her.

 

“This is bullshit! They’re just hurting themselves -- all of them, this  _ entire  _ plane -- if we don’t do something about it. Is that what you want?” 

 

Lup whipped around, her frustration mounting. “What do you want me to do? Just incinerate a group of people trapped in a cave?” Magnus trailed along after them, panicking as they started raising their voices at each other. Taako knew that he was right, though, and wasn’t going to let up. 

 

“Well, I think ten people is a small price to pay for the rest of this planet’s existence, for like, forever.” 

 

Lup placed an exasperated palm on her face. “Haven’t we done this already? We’ve kind of gone over this same thing before? And I recall getting a promise that this wouldn’t happen again.” 

 

“But that was different. The light is  _ right there, _ and we can save this entire plane. Doesn’t it seem a little fucked up to let this group of brainwashed fools decide the fate of everything for everyone here?”

 

Lup turned heel and continued to walk back towards the Starblaster without another word. She didn’t know what to do right then; she’d figure it out later, maybe have everyone else weigh in first. Magnus looked back and forth between them, his brow crumpled in worry. 

 

“It’s fine, Mags. You go after her.” Taako crossed his arms in front of himself. 

 

“Are you sure, Taako, I can -- I mean, I see what you’re saying, too, but she  _ did  _ have us promise, and maybe there’s something else-” 

 

“Yeah. It’s fine. You go brainstorm with her or whatever.” 

 

Magnus went after Lup while Taako stayed behind, stressing. After a few moments of thinking, he turned back towards the cave. 

 

…

 

Lup and Magnus hadn’t even made it halfway back to the ship when Taako sprinted up behind them both, a bright glow coming out from underneath his robe.

 

“Hey, might wanna pick up the pace!” He zoomed past them towards the ship, and Lup and Magnus heard yelling coming from behind them. They turned and saw the group of humans running from the cliffside after them. They both hurried after Taako until they were nearly to the ship. The elderly group chasing them moved slowly, and they were far enough behind them to not worry much. They still kept up a brisk pace, but Lup broke the silence as they walked. She needed to know what the hell just happened. 

 

“Taako… what did you do?” 

 

“I hid outside of the cave for a hot minute until they were all sitting back down and chilling and I just levitated that bad boy on out of there.” 

 

Lup smiled, her shoulders lowered in relief. “See? Your second ideas are always better than your gut reactions.”

 

Taako batted Lup’s hand away and hid a smile as she went to lightly punch his shoulder. “Stop pretending like you know me or something.” 

 

She stuck her tongue out at Taako and then ran behind Magnus, about to jump on to his back, but stopped short. 

 

“Ah shit, I forgot, you’re an old man now.” 

 

Magnus pouted. “Not  _ that  _ old! Besides, what’s there to worry about? Injuring myself? I’m gonna be dead in like a week anyways.” 

 

Lup laughed despite the macabre nature of Magnus’s comment. Gods, what a strange fucking existence they were living. She took a few steps back to get a running start before leaping onto his back. He ran slowly as Taako sprinted ahead of them to the door of the Starblaster. 

 

They safely made it inside and Taako was out of breath as he drew the gleaming orb of light from out of his robe. “Someone wanna go tell Davenport that we should maybe skidaddle and park somewhere else?” 

 

***

 

Barry had started sleeping for longer periods of time and Lup missed him. She hadn’t seen him early in the morning or spent time out on the deck with him for a couple of weeks. In some ways it was more difficult than the times he had unexpectedly died. When that happened, she felt abruptly gutted or like the ground had disappeared underneath her. But, watching him slowly degrade and forget and be in pain was like watching him die in some small, new way every few days. There was always one more thing that looked different about him, something that he couldn’t do anymore, something he had forgotten. 

 

He felt embarrassed about how he looked. After the first couple weeks he had started avoiding mirrors; it was shocking and upsetting seeing himself. Lup’s eyes always looked at him with such a deep sense of pity, and he couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want to be pitied -- he had come so far in being stronger, all to have it ripped away from him. He probably wasn’t even going to still be alive after a month. He started avoiding leaving his room. He didn’t want to see everyone’s eyes when they looked at him; what was happening to him, what was about to happen, was never more obvious than when he saw it through their expressions. 

 

He was already anticipating his death, wondering how Lup was going to be when he was gone, hating that he was going to cause her pain and that he couldn’t do anything about it. She could sense the distress and guilt coming from him and did everything she could to ease it. It wasn’t his fault, there was nothing that could be done. She was just going to have to watch him slowly die and be reminded about how if they ever did have the chance at normalcy and potentially the chance to be together, that was what she had waiting for her. Watching his hair grow gray and then white and thin. Seeing him slow down and slow down and slow down until his brain shut off, until he couldn’t remember his own name, until he looked at her like a stranger. Watching the dark arcs under his eyes that he had when he was especially exhausted become more prominent, to start sinking into the sockets of his skull. Unable to do anything as that little personal detail that she loved about him became a harbinger of his imminent death. 

 

They -- she…  _ had  _ to love him while they had all the time that they did. What if -- what if she said fuck everything and she gave in and was with him, if he would be with her, and took her time with him while time was still something that they had. She felt frantic. She couldn’t lose him permanently, never, not ever, she couldn’t lose him, couldn’t lose Barry,  _ her Barry. _

 

And what if that same thing happened if they ever stopped, if the Hunger stopped? What if all of the time they spent traveling caught up to them at once as soon as they were able to stay somewhere longer than a year? What if it caught up and they all turned to dust around each other... 

 

Her thoughts had her mind writhing in anguish. What if they didn’t have as much time as they thought? If she knew that they would all die tomorrow, what would she do? 

 

...

 

_ I’m Barry. My name is Barry. I’m on the Starblaster. The love of my life is Lup. I love Lup. She checks on me every morning.  _

 

Barry tried desperately to cling to his faculties. There wasn’t anything more terrifying for him than to be losing his ability to think and focus. He felt lost and hollow and not only like he didn’t know who he was, but that he essentially didn’t exist anymore -- the things that made Barry Barry were no longer accessible to him. All he knew was that there were a couple of things that he needed to hold on to until the very end. He couldn’t comprehend anymore that he would be back the next year. Everything just felt like it was melting, falling through his hands, that there were things he was desperate to remember, things he was supposed to know. All of his energy was spent on trying to retain those things, and there was no room for logical thought; there was only panic.

 

_ Lup, the love of my life is Lup. I’m Barry.  _

 

_ Someone is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. I haven’t found the one who called my name out loud. Somewhere in the fields with long grass. The sun, the moon, I know I know I know _

 

_ I have to stay awake. I need to see her again. That woman. Who checks on me every morning. There’s something about her that makes everything… that makes everything everything. It hurts, seeing her. It hurts less, seeing her. I want to be in that pain when I see her. I don’t know who she is, but I like seeing her. Even though it hurts.  _

 

_ No no no, she’s Lup, that’s Lup… Barry, you can  _ _ not _ _ lose her name, thatisLupthatisLup _

 

_ You’re going to die. And never see her again. She has to know, you need to tell her before you’re gone. You’re dying, Barry. That’s Lup and you’re dying and you never told her.  _

 

Barry didn’t even have the strength to cry. His mind didn’t have the clarity left to have retained the fact that he was going to be back, that he would be alive again. All he could feel was that his life was slipping away, and the few spots of his brain that were still firing could only tell him that he was afraid of death, and that death was forever. He couldn’t fathom why he had never told Lup. How could he have lived his whole life and let that opportunity slip, year after year, until he was dying? It was wrong, it was wrong, he was dying and it was wrong… 

 

He heard a knock at his door, and then the sound of the door opening.

 

“Is that you?” Barry’s eyes had degraded so much that his glasses didn’t work anymore and he could barely see Lup standing next to him. She was grateful for that, because then he couldn’t see her crying. She kneeled by his bed and held his hand. 

 

He responded to the feeling of her hand on his. “Who is this?” Lup choked back tears and couldn’t find the breath to speak. 

 

“Can you tell her, tell her that I’ve that I can that I will  th-that thh-that…” Barry trailed off and seemed to forget what he was saying. 

 

“What is it, Barry?” 

 

He squeezed her hand. “I n-need you to tell h-her, let her know, she should know before I’m gone I I I-“

There was silence and moments later he was sleeping. It was late and Lup didn’t feel like trying to get anything else done that day. The sadness hanging over everyone had her feeling sucked of energy. She went to her room to get her sketchbook and returned to sit next to Barry as he slept, until whenever he woke up next and they could talk more. He had been dipping in and out of varying levels of lucidity and she hoped that maybe he’d be more aware of her presence whenever he was awake next. 

 

…

 

“Did I ever tell you- did I ever tell you about when I was- when I lived on another planet? 

Did I ever tell you about the planet where… the time where there were flowers everywhere? I was there with… who was I there with.” He turned his head to look towards Lup’s fuzzy outline as she held his hand. His voice was shaky and unsure. “She looked a lot like you, I think. Just, the most beautiful person.” Lup pressed her lips together tight and held back tears. “That was when we… oh what did we do. She was my best friend. I don’t know what happened to her.” He closed his eyes and his breathing grew even more strained. “I wish I knew where she went. I miss her.” 

 

Why had she waited? She came to the realization a week before that she should say something. What if her and Taako didn’t make it to the end of the year? What if that was it? And she had just wasted her last opportunity to let him know. He was so far gone -- he wouldn’t remember, might not even hear it if she told him. He couldn’t see her, couldn’t see her face to know how much she meant it if she said it. He wouldn’t be able to comprehend the feelings she had for him. Burning tears streamed down her face. What if she fucked up? What if that was it? 

 

Barry’s eyes were starting to close. She squeezed his hand again and his eyes opened fully and he turned and looked at her blankly. 

 

“Who is that?”

 

Lup worked her way around the lump in her throat. “It’s Lup. I need to tell you something.” 

 

“Okay.” He could barely get the single word out; his breath was weakening with every minute that passed. She laid a gentle hand on his forehead and drew close so that he would hear her. 

 

“Barry. I need you to know… just in case we don’t make it.” Lup stroked his forehead, trying not to hiccup on the sobs that she was so desperately holding back. “Barry, I -- I love you. I love you so,  _ so  _ much.”

 

Barry took a moment to gather his breath enough to speak through the harsh wheezing that had developed within the previous couple of minutes. “Oh. That’s so nice to hear. Thank you.” His voice was soft and sincere, but he obviously didn’t understand. She had waited until he couldn’t even understand her. Why had she done that… 

 

“Barry, no, Barry,” she fought not to stumble over her tears. “I love you, I love you, and I wish I could just tell you, I wish things weren’t so complicated, and I hope to the gods that this isn’t the end, I hope that this wasn’t my last chance, just -- fuck, Barry. I hope that maybe you know, that you’ve known. Or at least that you know that I care about you, deeply. I hope that you know that.” 

 

Despite the gentle pressure she occasionally put on his hand, he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. He was fast asleep. Lup felt grief pooling inside of her, leaving her with an unshakable heaviness. She laid her head against the mattress next to his sleeping form, hunched over, still on her knees, beside him. She stayed like that until she almost fell asleep there. She finally pulled herself together and went out to the common room to breathe, to be with the people who could ease some of the despair she was feeling.

 

…

 

When she went to his room with dinner later that night, he was gone. 

 

She knew before she even opened the door that he was dead; there was an eerie stillness as she walked down the hall and she felt a chill run up her spine. She wasn’t shocked when she entered his room. She just felt defeated. She set down their plates on the floor and walked over to his bedside. She couldn’t stop staring into the face that she loved, aged to death. Very few things about him looked like Barry, but she could still see him there. His hair was white and thin, his scalp visible below it. His glasses no longer framed his face; they had been long abandoned after becoming useless to him. 

 

She held his hand, even though it felt so… wrong. It was cold, stiff, discolored, wrinkled. Nothing about it was familiar. But she knew it was his, and that was enough to know that she needed to hold it. To transfer some hopeful thought to him as he lay somewhere in the liminal space between their current plane and wherever their escape from the Hunger took them next. 

 

And as she sat there at the side of her dead love, a painful truth that Lup had known for a long time was highlighted in a way that couldn’t be ignored… if they ever did break the cycle that they were stuck in, if they could live for more than a year somewhere ever again -- he would age. He would age so much faster than her. 

 

She would see him age while she still looked young and she would watch him lose his ability to move, to hear, to see, to think; she would watch everything leave him bit by bit until he was entirely gone. And it wouldn’t even be that much time to her. She would have to watch all of that happen  _ again,  _ except that it would be painfully slower, but she would know what was coming; she had seen it already. Her Barry.  _ Her Barry. _ Would be gone, completely, for real some day. He would be buried for a long time before she would even get old.  

  
  


It had only been five weeks. Barry was gone. Lucretia and Magnus looked like they weren’t far behind. Davenport and Merle were aging as well. But, Lup and Taako had only noticed some small changes. It was so unfair. They were a family. They were supposed to be in  _ everything  _ together. But the differences between them that dictated the span of their lives, their fatal flaws, were never so heartbreakingly apparent as they were then. 

  
  


***

  
  


“My wrists hurt too much to write.” 

 

It was a simple complaint, but it housed such a deeply sad sentiment and hurt so much to hear. Lucretia’s hands were wrapped around the warm mug of tea that Davenport had brought her to try and ease some of the aching in her fingers. 

 

They had started spending most of their time in the common room together, putting a good portion of their work on hold. They had so recently lost Barry, and Magnus and Lucretia were obviously going to be leaving them soon, as well. Their year had barely started and Taako and Lup knew that they were going to be on their own for a good portion of it. Work could wait. They at least had the light, and with Barry gone, they weren’t going to get very far with it anyways. They sealed it in a box and put it away in storage. 

 

...

 

“I -- I can’t lift this.” Magnus’s voice trembled as he gave up trying to move a box in the pantry for Taako. He turned away while covering his eyes with a hand as the tears started to form, and walked off to his bedroom. 

 

A bit later, there was a knock at Magnus’s door and he opened it to Lucretia standing there with empathetic eyes and soft white hair. He silently let her in and they both sat on the edge of his bed together. 

 

“This is a pretty shit year, huh?” Magnus choked out a small laugh and Lucretia turned to gently smile at him before looking back down at the floor. 

 

“Want to make a bet on who goes first?” Lucretia’s suggestion got a small but sincere chuckle out of Magnus. 

 

“Hell, why not? What were you thinking?” 

 

Lucretia thoughtfully tapped a finger against her lips. “Oh, well… I don’t think I expected to be taken up on that, but sure. Might as well get something out of this. Let me see-”

 

“Or maybe,” Magnus paused a moment as he put his thought together. “Instead of a bet -- a dare?” 

 

“Oh! That could be interesting but uh… maybe not anything too wild?” 

 

“Aw, where’s the fun in that?” Magnus saw the slight concern on Lucretia’s face. “Okay okay, don’t worry. How about just -- ooh, okay next year, keep a separate journal where you write pages and pages worth of just… meowing. And then you have to let me know before you show Davenport what you have down for the year so far so that I can see his expression.” 

 

“Oh, that’s awful! He’ll probably think something is horribly wrong.” Lucretia held a hand to her chest in a gesture of feigned shock. “But yeah, I’ll totally do it.” They both laughed together before she abruptly paused. 

 

“Oh oh oh, okay and for  _ you; _ you have to… only walk backwards for an entire day.”

 

“Deal!” Magnus and Lucretia smiled and for a moment, their minds off of their sad states. Then, Lucretia sighed as the deep lines and tired eyes of Magnus’s face caught her attention. 

 

“Well. I’m glad that this isn’t going to be permanent, at least. I don’t really… I don’t like this.” 

 

“Yeah, I’m not doing so great. With not having any strength. That’s really the only thing I’m able to do for everyone.” 

 

“Magnus,” Lucretia looked at him, disbelief in her expression. “You can’t think that. You know you’re  _ so  _ much more to everyone than that, right?” 

 

“I--” he choked up and couldn’t form words. Lucretia reached over and put a hand on his. 

 

“You know, I often feel like there’s really only one thing that I’m able to do for everyone, too. And it really hurts when anything happens that makes it so that I can’t do that one thing. And in those times, I have to remind myself that we’re a family. And that’s how a family works; we all have our spot, our specialty, and we get things done as a unit. But, we’re not reduced to the part that we play. Because what’s more important than you protecting us and more important than me recording everything is that we’re here for each other. This is not something that any single one of us would be able to do alone.” 

 

Magnus turned his hand over so that he could squeeze hers. “Yeah. I wouldn’t be able to do any of this alone, that’s for sure. I’m really glad we’re all together.” 

 

Lucretia squeezed his hand back. “Me too.” 

  
  
  


By the end of that week, Magnus was gone. Lucretia followed him just two days later. 

 

*******

 

Lup leaned against Taako as they sat at Merle’s bedside. His breathing was raspy and he had kept his eyes closed for a while, even though he was still awake and talking to them. 

 

“Don’t worry, kids. I’ll be back soon.” 

 

“Don’t threaten me like that.” Taako sniffed with a weak, crooked smile on his face.

 

It was a strange feeling; Merle had completely stopped worrying about growing older for decades, and then he suddenly had so many years ripped out from underneath him. He wasn’t too concerned about it, though; it was just the hot new weirdness of the year. He felt like he was fading fast and was going to be gone soon, but he wasn’t really in any pain so he didn’t mind. He just felt sorry for them -- they seemed pretty sad. He knew he was going to be missed. 

 

“Say, why are you two so beat up? Not only have we had all this extra time on the ship, but you guys should be used to long amounts of time; you’ve got the longest life span of any of us. You can do a year standing on your heads.” 

 

Taako turned and looked down at his feet. Lup saw that he wasn’t going to speak. 

 

“Well, I guess that it’s -- Taako and I, we’ve mostly only ever had each other and… haven’t really had many other people in our lives at all, or when we did, we eventually lost them. So, it’s not so much about the amount of time or anything, it’s just -- it’s the fact that it seems like we’re going to lose all of you this year.”

 

Taako nodded solemnly. “Yeah, I mean don’t get me wrong, I love spending one on one time with this doofus, but it’s- it’s just a familiar feeling that kinda sucks. Losing everyone, that is.”  

 

Merle coughed. “Well. I’m sorry that you’ve lost so much in the past. But, this isn’t the past anymore and you don’t have to worry about losing us! Seems like we’re all in this together for the long haul, whether we like it or not.” Merle opened up his eyes to look at the twins. “Old Merle’s going to be just fine. I’ll be back to brighten your lives in less than a year, so don’t you worry.” 

 

*******

Davenport felt responsible. He felt guilty about what was happening to his crew because of the plane they were on, as if he could control where they went to and what happened when they were there.

 

His hands had started shaking constantly; he hated it. He never realized how much having a steady hand was integral to his confidence, to what made him feel like the captain of their crew. If he couldn’t pilot, if he couldn’t be a steady, stalwart, rock for all of them… he didn’t know who he was. He needed to have control. Nothing scared him more than the thought of things being outside of the realm of the controllable. He had already been forced to confront that fear yearly, and then on top of all of that, he couldn’t even keep his hands steady that year. 

 

He would be back soon after dying. Back to himself, to his body in its prime; the body of a captain. But… he knew, and would know from then on what it was going to feel like to grow old, what he had to look forward to as his body aged. If he ever got the opportunity to grow old like normal some day, he would know for the whole time as his days went on that eventually he would get to a point where he couldn’t keep his hands steady, that there would be a day where he wouldn’t be able to steer. By then, would he have other things in his life? Would he be happy in other ways enough to be okay with that? Or would he eventually get to a point where he didn’t feel like himself anymore and that would be it? 

 

He reached for the glass of water in front of him and almost spilled it as his hand shook. At least Merle was gone and he didn’t also have to face the fact that he couldn’t hold on to a hand of cards.

 

“ Taako, Lup. I’m so sorry.” 

 

“It’s fine. It’s not anything you can help.” Lup set a tray of food on Davenport’s lap where he sat on the couch and she gently took his hands, setting them on to the silverware so that he could feel out the setup in front of him. 

 

Davenport’s eyes were clouded over with cataracts. He couldn’t see them, couldn't see their faces. He worried about not being able to look at the twins; he couldn’t tell what kind of shape they were in. He knew they had a much longer time to live, but he was still worried. He hoped beyond hope that whenever he finally faded out completely, he would be awake within a second and back at the helm with a steady hand. He was so grateful for them; the mechanics of that planet could have easily done them in and have been their last stop if none of them had the lifespan left to survive. 

 

*******

 

“Just like when it was only us, huh?’ Taako wedged himself in between some pillows and the arm of the couch. 

 

“Yeah! Just you and me. Like old times, ‘cept we can’t go out on the road. Gotta stay inside the caravan.”

 

Taako leaned back and wriggled around, sinking deeper into the pillows. “Hell of a way to get quality time together.”

 

“It’s really strange… the ship being so empty.” Lup looked around the common room and Taako could tell that she was starting to go to a negative place. 

 

“Yeah, empty and stuff. But hey; we can do whatever we want. Liiike…” Taako raised his eyebrows at her, waiting for her to finish his sentence.

 

“Soaking the floor with that cheap cooking oil we’re never gonna use and chasing each other with plastic bags on our feet to see who can stay standing longer?”

 

“... not at all what I was thinking, but yeah, why the hell not?” Taako struggled his way out of the pillows that he had just worked so hard to get comfortable in and ran to the kitchen. Lup jumped off of the couch and ran after him. 

 

***

 

“It feels like so long since everyone has been gone.” 

 

“Yeah. It does feel like that.” Lup stared vacantly at the corner of the room, her legs flopped over Taako’s lap, reclining into the arm of the couch behind her. 

 

He looked over and saw her blank expression. “Barry’s been gone the longest.”

 

Lup almost whimpered. “Yeah.” 

 

Taako took her hand. “We’ll make time go by fast. I’m sure there’s got to be some more booze around here that Cap’n has stashed or something. And I’ll cook you anything you want and-” Taako heard Lup sniffle. He gripped her hand.

 

“It wasn’t… great. Seeing them all get old like that.”

 

“Sure wasn’t.” Taako let a silent moment go by before bringing up something that he had been trying to find a gentle way of talking about. 

 

“Are you okay about Barry?”

 

“I will be. I have to be, I-” she shook her head. “I am, I am…” 

 

Taako nodded solemnly. “You uhh… you still interested in all that?” Lup looked at him questioningly.

 

Taako shrugged. “I mean, you basically just got to see his whole life play out. You saw what happens to the goods; you still in for the long haul on that one?” Lup rolled her eyes, but he at least got a small smile out of her. 

 

“You are the worst.” They both snickered, but it tapered off quickly. 

 

“No, but really… I’m sorry for giving you a hard time, Lu. I miss him, too. He’s, uh -- he’s not so bad. Barry is really, uh… he’s smart and like. Nice, and whatever.” 

 

Lup took the opportunity to taunt her brother. “Aww, wow you’re really gushing over him, huh? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say something so sweet about anyonnne.” 

 

“Ugh, shut up. Fine, he smells and I hate him, is that better? That’ll teach me to be mushy with you.” Taako shoved Lup towards the other end of the couch with his foot. She smacked it away and giggled before punching his arm. 

 

Taako rubbed his arm, laughing. “No, but really, he’s -- I can see it, I guess. _ ”  _

 

After a few quiet moments, Taako continued. “You know, he helped me cover it up when I was drunk and tripped over Cap’n Port’s special loungin’ chair on the deck so bad that I totally busted it.”

 

“That was you!?” 

 

“Oh shit.” Taako looked shocked. “Did he really not tell you? Damn. Guess I underestimated Barry’s dedication to secrecy. I just kind of assumed that he’d at least tell you.” 

 

“Oh, I am going to give him  _ so  _ much shit for not telling me. That is too funny to keep to himself; how dare he?”

 

Taako exhaled with a small laugh. Barry really was kind of an okay guy. Not that anyone in any reality could be okay  _ enough  _ for his sister, but at least he was trustworthy and a good person. Too bad the two of them were both taking forever to do anything about their painfully obvious feelings; it had made him desperately want to say something on more than one occasion. But, as Taako contemplated the long stretch of time they had gone without the others, he felt the weight of how deeply they all needed each other. And he realized more than ever how important it was not to interfere with their balance. It was also important to let everyone have their space, their personal things, and to let them deal with those personal things as they chose. They had so little space, so few rare moments of privacy; everyone deserved to have at least some small corner carved out for themselves. He would have to resolve to entertaining himself by occasionally giving her a hard time about her crush. 

 

*******

 

“So this is what you look like as an old lady.”

 

“Hah! Well, I always imagined that your sense of style would decline with your age. I was looking forward to seeing you in turtlenecks and cardigans.” 

 

Taako propped his hands on his hips. “In your dreams, LuLu. The only thing that this little experience has illuminated for me is that now we know who’s gonna be the hottest when we get old.” He pressed a thumb triumphantly into his chest. “Taako wins again, baby.”

 

After dinner, the twins sat on the couch together and tried to think of what else to do to kill time for the last couple of days before the Hunger arrived. They held each other’s hands and they could feel that their skin was looser; the sensations of age were so strange and heavy. Lup saw the way that Taako’s ears drooped, and he saw the way that the wrinkles starting at the corners of her eyes deepened and spread and multiplied across her face. Their golden freckles dulled and darkened, their shining bright hair had gone limp and lackluster. They were still gorgeous by most standards, but by elven standards they were old and less than half a century from death.

 

Barry would never see her like that. There would never be a situation in which they could grow old together. The face that she looked at in the mirror later that night was one that he would never see. And by the time she looked like that, he would have been dead so long that it would probably be difficult to remember his face. And that was true for her entire family, other than Taako. She winced at the sting of tears trying to form. She took a deep breath, stopped tormenting herself with such negative, hypothetical thoughts and made herself smile. It was almost over. Her and her brother were going to get them out of there and get everyone back and get to see everyone again. See Barry again. 

 

She looked in the mirror and was met with the same emotion that she had when looking at her scarred hands. She kind of liked the look of being older, the signs of having lived a long life, of having never been defeated or beaten down. She had watched her love die and then spent just under eleven months without him -- then watched the rest of her family die, except for her brother. But there she was despite everything that had happened that year and every year before it. Strong, standing firmly in front of the mirror, self-possessed, stoic. She believed in herself, just as she believed in her family, and she knew that there was nothing on any plane that would ever take them out. They were going to survive. And not only that, but one day they were going to win. She knew it, deep in her heart. 

 

She took a steady, intentional breath and left the mirror just as the familiar sound of the sky cracking open, the sound that they had been prepared for all day, rang out and echoed across the plains and against the mountains and cliff sides all around them. She rushed to the cockpit, braced herself, and gripped the wheel of the Starblaster, falling instinctually into the procedures that Davenport had drilled into everyone. The ship was up and out and soon became a small flashing silver streak in the sky, zipping off into space to break through a wobbly bit of darkness, off to find another home for a year.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	30. Tesseralia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Thirty

 

Davenport didn’t have the words to express the relief that he felt when he found himself at the wheel of the Starblaster, his steady hands guiding them towards the material plane of the system set out before them. He focused all of his attention on taking the ship down and landing them safely on the planet’s surface, but he couldn’t wait to get out of the cockpit and see his crew. He had never been so grateful for a group of people in his life.

 

It was understandably an incredibly strange feeling being swiftly whisked back into the bodies that they were used to, all of the pain and fogginess and the feeling of slowly fading away switched within a second back to normalcy. Barry was acutely aware of how soon it was in the year that he had died, how much time he had missed out on with Lup. And he felt so bad for her and Taako having to survive most of the year without everyone, having to be so careful every day and never getting to leave the ship. But there was a noticeable calm from the two; the time alone together and alive had been good for them. Watching each other age was frightening, but they also felt like they had bonded over it. It gave them a look into their long lives together and the unwavering pillars of consistency and reliability that they were for each other, that they would always be. Even if the worst happened and everyone else in their lives left once again and faded away from their memory, they would always have each other. It was something that they knew they were very lucky to have.

 

Davenport landed them on top of a hill with a sprawling, flat spot of land with an excellent view reaching far into the distance of every direction. In a couple of days, the light came falling down and they quickly left to chase after it.

The Starblaster sped towards the spot where they saw the light fall until they reached a city dotted with towers and spires, accented by temples of careful and elaborate architecture gleaming with stained glass, and with clock towers of stained bronze and aged wood jutting out from between tall clusters of buildings at random. The city was close to where they approximated the landing spot of the Light to be, so they left the ship to take their chances and see whether the occupants of the city might help them. 

 

*******

 

Because of the near constant amount of time they were spending in the city, that year most of the crew did something different than usual and found apartments to live in rather than having the ship be their home base. The way that the economy, housing, and jobs worked in Tesseralia made it incredibly easy to do so. The society was structured in a way to take care of the people living within it above all else; health, peace, and happiness reigned supreme over the structure of the idyllic, aged civilization. 

 

Even though the crew took advantage of the opportunity to live individually, they still felt stressed at the idea of being separated. They remained close so that they could see each other whenever it was needed, or even just wanted. Lucretia lived downstairs from Lup and Taako, and Magnus was just down the hall from Barry in a building across the street. 

 

Davenport of course stayed on the ship. As much as a change of pace in his living situation might have been nice, losing that assurance of always having a quick escape was not something that he was willing to let go of for any reason. But, unless the others came to visit or pick something up from their rooms, he did get to have the ship to himself most of the time. That in itself ended up being enough of a change of pace for him. 

 

Once settled in the city, Lup and Taako had made it their mission to comb through the entire city for the best food that they could find. They eventually came across a street guide that was able to promise them access to even better food. Not only better, but the best on the planet, according to the man’s claims. 

 

In the restaurant inhabited entirely by a close knit community of chefs, Taako actually felt a little bit intimidated -- he had never run into anyone that was even close to being comparable to him as a chef, but there in that restaurant, everything he saw was so unique and foreign to him. Smells and sights and tastes and techniques and ingredients and equipment he had never experienced the like of before were commonplace there. Lup felt like a kid in a candy shop; she wasn’t as concerned as Taako was about being the best at cooking, she just found it fun and as with all things, she operated under the assumption that no matter how much you knew about something, there would always be room for improvement and there would always be brand new things to learn. That was how she felt about her practice in the arcane arts, but Taako had grown complacent on their homeworld, and then much more so in their travels since its destruction, feeling sure that there was no food better than what he could make. He had yet to run into anything superior over the course of inhabiting thirty different planets, and that had seemed like a pretty significant sign that he really just was that amazing. 

 

He wasn’t tragic about it though; it was just kind of a shock -- maybe more of an awakening for him. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t started to get a little bored with cooking the same things for the crew out of the limited ingredients they got, only getting the occasional interesting and good tasting new or unique ingredient to experiment with. But, right there in front of him were piles of new things, new flavor profiles to experience, new methods to learn; it was a room full of pure inspiration. There was more to do, more to learn, more to strive for; he had something to work on again, something to improve at. He looked forward to gleaning as much as he could during his time there. 

 

And then there was something strange as he dug into his third plate of the night alongside an equally enthusiastic Lup. He felt -- something strange. Like a warm blanket had wrapped around him and tugged lightly at him. Just a slight, friendly pull from somewhere far away. He forgot to take a breath for a moment as he tried to process the feeling. What was that? It wasn’t  _ bad _ it was just -- incomprehensible. And eventually, it swelled and burst into a feeling of assurance, of confidence, safety. Of  _ destiny _

 

Taako lost all sense of himself as he was pulled into the dull sensation of a faraway connection being stitched together, like the tugging of a needle through anesthetized skin. Lup’s voice gradually broke through the fog around him and he realized that she had been talking to him for a minute but her voice had only been a distant, whispering echo in the background. He didn’t know how to even begin to describe what had just happened to him, and they were in the middle of enjoying their time together -- he decided to table talking about it or trying to figure it out for later. 

 

…

 

“What are we gonna do with all this cool shit when we leave?” Lup cradled a stuffed animal half her size; it was of some sort of creature unique to the plane that they hadn’t seen in person yet and Lup adored it. They had accumulated a fair amount of decor, games, cooking equipment, art supplies, and clothes, even though they were both well aware that they could only keep a fraction of what they had stuffed their apartment with. 

 

Taako shrugged, idly continuing to stir the sauce he was experimenting with on the stove. “Charity. Dump it into the ocean. Anything we want really. Not our problem once we’re outta here.”

 

Lup rocked back from where she sat on the floor and laid down, looking up at the ceiling, the strange animal still in her arms. “Huh. I wonder if they even have charities here, everything is just so perfect and accessible and balanced already. Charity is pretty much almost always predicated on suffering, now that I think about it. That kinda sucks, huh?” 

 

“Well, whatchya gonna do.” Taako was barely listening as he cut into foreign vegetables that bled an almost neon purple liquid with one of the impossibly sharp and perfectly weighted knives they had picked up. 

 

Lup didn’t mind that her brother’s head was somewhere else. She had just been thinking out loud mostly for the past half hour as he bustled about in the kitchen. She was feeling bored; rolling around on the floor with a stuffed animal and yelling hypothetical questions from across the room at her busy brother wasn’t entertaining anymore. 

 

She wanted to go drop in on Barry, but she wanted to fabricate some sort of reason first. The previous year had made her emotions a little bit too raw around him. For the second time, she had said --  _ that  _ \-- out loud to him. Her feelings were very mixed about the fact that both times it hadn’t been truly heard by anyone but herself. She was relieved, she was sure that it was for the best, but she also so badly just wanted to pull that trigger, to risk things crashing down, to feel an adrenaline rush so strong that it could crush her like a typhonic wave. It would just have to wait, have to wait and wait -- the fact that she was agonizing so much over what to do probably meant that she should stay on the safe side. Because, she could plainly feel that the side of her that was in favor of doing something, the side that was trying to propel her forward into a haphazard decision, was a side of her that was careless and operating purely out of self interest and recklessness. It wasn’t the side of her that was aware of consequences. 

 

She knew that she could just go visit him; there wouldn’t be anything strange about it. She didn’t actually need a reason, and he would probably be happy to see her. They could make plans, go out and do something. But she knew she needed some sort of structure, something to ground herself, some sort of reason for showing up at his door so that she could recite what to say and avoid saying something wrong. Freedom and impulsiveness had not been her friends lately when it came to Barry. 

 

And she finally thought of something; something constructive that they could do together so that they could occupy the same space, but not risk any sort of emotional or too personal of a moment. She just really needed some distance from her feelings, but she couldn’t go too long with distance from him. 

 

When Barry heard the knock at his door, he knew it could have been anyone, but there was one person that he desperately hoped it would be. He felt his heart leap when he opened the door to Lup’s beaming face. She rocked back and forth on her heels, her hands behind her back.

 

“Sooo, while Taako and I were exploring, we ran across a used book store with some super old, interesting stuff. Taako already grabbed a couple things, but we were mostly rushing around from one food place to the next and I didn’t really get enough time to browse. I was thinking of going back today and wanted to see if you would want to go?” 

 

Barry’s face lit up, but then his smile sank as he remembered something.

 

“Ah, damn it, I uh -- promised Magnus that I was going to help him with setting up a practice field for him and those kids he’s coaching today. We’re supposed to go do that pretty soon here, actually. _ Shit.” _

 

“Oh, that’s okay, Barry! That sounds like it’ll be fun, you-”

 

Barry panicked and accidentally cut Lup off in an effort to rescue the opportunity. “I mean, I can cancel, I don’t think he actually needs that much help with it, he was probably just inviting me to be nice or he thinks I’m bored or something or-”

 

“Barry, it’s totally cool. Go help Magnus, I’ll see you around later!” 

 

Lup trotted off and as soon as she turned the corner down the hall of the apartment complex and out of sight, she tried as hard as she could to not let the disappointment weigh her down and take the spring out of her step. 

  
  


***

 

“...now, because of me, you're all winners too. Because the magic wasn’t in you all along. It was in me. And I've made you the winners that you are here, today, now.”

 

At some point, Magnus had lost the flow of his speech to the kids and went just a little bit off the rails. Despite the choppiness and the strange, self-glorifying turn it took, it still energized and motivated the team. 

 

Magnus had spent months with the group of kids, learning the sport of Rebound from the ground up so that he could train them to competition standards. The crew thought it was a very sweet use of his time, even if he sometimes got a little pompous because of it. He deserved that; they all deserved to have something to be proud of, something that was calming and low stakes and not the never ending struggle of their role in the preservation of existence. It had also given him a connection to a place and a group of people other than the crew that he had had a hard time feeling in a while -- the handful of times before when he had made any friends over the course of their year on a plane had ripped his heart out when they were inevitably left behind. 

 

But, Magnus felt confident that they were at least going to get the light and his connections on that planet would end up being safe. He had put his trust in Merle; after all Oriana, the sophisticated abbess from the monastery that had promised them a chance at recovering the light, must have seen something in him that made her want to pick him to work with for an entire year. Why else would a stranger look at Merle and decide to spend their entire year on him? Not that Magnus didn’t love Merle like the rest of his family, he just knew what a first impression of Merle was like. 

 

Even though he’d have to leave everyone behind, Magnus at least knew that they were doing everything they could for them. It allowed him to become more invested than he had felt safe doing so for a while. And he became invested enough that he was clued in on all the local scandal and drama -- and he was living for it. There was nothing that endeared you faster to the locals of Tesseralia than to dunk on whoever had been the most recent blemish on their society. With widespread peace there were no jails, and when someone did do something that was frowned upon, the greatest punishment was them being lightly ostracized until their misstep was far enough in the past to not be part of their public image anymore. And that was what gave Magnus such satisfaction out of harassing the janitor for almost the entirety of his time training the children. The first time he had dug into him awarded him with immediate acceptance from some of the parents of the kids he was working with. With that positive reinforcement, Magnus realized that harshing the janitor earned him points and made him friends. So, he may have become maybe a little bit too invested in that part of the society, too.  

  
  
  


After Magnus’s most recent callout at the janitor as he snuck in and tried to casually pick his old job back up, he moped and dramatically hung his head as he walked away; he had just been trying to be supportive of the team. And also sneak back in and carry on as if nothing had happened. It seemed like his honestly very small and harmless crime was going to color people’s opinion of him for a long time still. Even strangers from another planet judged him. He had his reasons for what he did -- they were mostly gambling related and therefore a little frowned upon, but they were reasons nonetheless. He didn’t just do it out of boredom or to be a menace. And that to him felt like enough to not deserve any sort of punishment; his intentions had mostly been good... even if the result of his intentions was some light embezzlement.

 

***

 

“So, you’re gonna pull in the Hunger, right? Into this uh, this room or whatever?” Barry looked at Merle expectantly. 

 

“Well, that’s one option, but maybe there are others-”

 

Lup interrupted him before he was able to go too far down a rabbit hole of his creation. “Merle, dear. This is a huge chance we have to actually learn something about the Hunger. I can’t really think of anything that is more important than that.” 

 

Lup and Barry continued to highlight the importance of what Merle had to do, with Davenport also joining in on applying pressure to him. Magnus made sure to remind him that if he died, he’d just be right back, as if he didn’t already know that -- being the one that had died much more than any of them, he had to gently remind Magnus that dying still hurt. He of course already knew what was the most obvious and important thing to do; he just liked to hypothesize and think out loud about other potential scenarios, but they were taking everything he said so seriously. 

 

“Yeah, yeah, of course, I’ll hop on that right now. Let me just get my shirt off...”

 

Davenport sighed and shook his head. “I -- really  _ really  _  don’t understand why you have to, but okay. Whatever it takes for you to be comfortable doing this.”

 

As odd and difficult as Merle was about the whole thing, Barry really admired what he was going to do for them. Merle spending the entire year training and not only learning such an incredibly valuable skill, but also being solely responsible for their chance at recovering the light was not what anyone had expected out of that year. And the skill that he had learned -- it seemed like such an impossible thing. Being able to summon an enemy into a neutral room to talk things out was beyond any power they ever thought they would be able to wield. Barry shivered at the mere thought of doing what Merle was about to do; but Merle seemed so casual about it. Who knew what it was going to look or sound like, or if trying to contact it would even work? He wondered what kind of pain Merle might be subjected to, what psychological damage might occur just from being in a room with that thing, or from hearing it say something. There was no telling what kind of power it had; it was able to consume worlds, how else might it be able to bend matter, change things, destroy things, impact the mind or body in some unfixable way, even under their fantastical circumstance of continuous regeneration? What if they antagonized it and it retaliated in a way that they could never come back from? And what if Merle didn’t die in that room? What if it found a way to just hold him there, imprison him? 

 

Barry had a million questions; not just  _ for  _ the Hunger, but  _ about  _ it, and about what was going to happen next. The hesitation he felt at the whole situation became heavier and heavier. But Merle was doing it. His shirt was off and he sat down on a pillow. Barry knew that he had to let Merle know how much he appreciated what he was doing, how brave it was of him. Because, if there was even the slightest chance of not getting him back, Barry wanted to make sure to be sincere and open with him and tell him how important he was. 

 

After everyone got their last words in, their comments, their requests for information gathered, their encouragement, Merle was suddenly just… gone. There was a faint outline of him, sitting on the pillow still. It was unsettling, but they kept a close eye on the outline and waited for what would happen next. 

 

...

 

With an open mind and no shirt, Merle sat at the opposite end of a long, immaculately clean table from a sharply dressed man who had just struggled to speak before taking a drink of water. The demeanor and appearance of the man would have been intimidating for most. But Merle was immediately accepting of and unphased by the change of scenery and by the new person in front of him. He had no issue wrapping his head around the idea that at the center of the Hunger, the thing that had mystified and terrified them for three decades, was a mostly ordinary man. 

 

Even the man seemed startled by the sudden change of scenery, by Merle, by existing in a space at all, hearing, speaking. But, Merle wasn’t startled; he only wanted to know the man’s name. It was a question that he didn’t get an answer to, unfortunately. But, despite what the others had asked of him, that’s what he felt was the most important first step. He hadn’t formed any expectations or guesses as to what it was that would be sitting across from him once he got into the parlay room, but after seeing that it was a  _ someone  _ and that it had a voice, all he wanted to know was its name. It only felt right to be able to address someone, to know them, before plying them with questions. 

 

“You must be interested in us, since you’ve been hunting us for years.” 

 

The man looked confused. ‘Hunting’ wasn’t a word he would use to describe -- anything that he did, or had ever done, really. But, he didn’t have the focus to parse through that particular idea at that moment. Being in a tangible place, speaking with his voice; while interesting, was not something that had anything to do with their work. And there was no way that he was going to be able to explore that space or take any time doing anything, having a conversation, thinking, talking,  _ being,  _ if he had even the slightest suspicion that they might be trapped. He had never even considered until then that the concept of being trapped or slowed down or resisted in any way was something that could even come anywhere near him, but he was in such a strange and unheard of situation at the moment that anything could have been possible. So he had to entertain the idea that he might have been actually trapped or stopped somethow, tied up in some pocket dimension rather than actually being fought against; he couldn’t fathom why anyone or anything would resist them, but  if something were to, heading up against them physically would absolutely not be the way to go. Trapping them in some extradimensional space, while improbable, would probably be the only way to do it. But the dwarf mostly seemed hellbent on getting information out of him; not exactly what someone would do if all they were meaning to accomplish was to trap him. 

 

“Am I able to -- go?” 

 

There was one thing that seemed like it might give an immediate answer as to whether or not he was trapped there, and that was to kill the only other living thing in the room since it seemed that was who had caused him to be where he was. If the dwarf really had him trapped, then he would need to be unkillable to keep him there. So, if he was able to kill him…

 

“Well, if I've been hunting you, I don’t think I need information. It kind of seems like I've got you right here.”

 

Merle felt a burning pain bloom inside of his chest and then surge through his entire body. As he noticed licks of black flame bursting from out of his chest where the shadowy fire had completely torn through him, he remembered that he reminded Magnus that dying still hurt -- he knew he was dying, which meant that he was going to get to  say ‘I told you so,’ to Magnus very soon. 

 

***

 

Lup walked across the deck of the Starblaster to stand next to Barry. She leaned against the railing next to him close enough for their elbows to be nearly touching. 

 

“I feel like I’ve barely seen you this year.” 

 

Barry was startled; he had been so deep in thought looking out across the landscape spread in front of them that he didn’t even notice her walk up. 

 

“Y-eah, uh- I’m sorry. Kind of got roped into a lot of stuff and then when I wasn’t busy, you weren’t home and-”

 

“Oh shit! I didn’t even know you had come by.” Lup felt a heavy disappointment about the time that she didn’t even know she had missed out on with him. 

 

“Oh uh, yeah, o-of course. I’m sorry our schedules never really lined up. Guess I’m kind of bad at coordinating, hah.” Barry rubbed the back of his neck; something about having barely seen Lup that year was making him more nervous around her than he had been for a while. 

 

“Well, I could’ve been more helpful with that, too.” Lup stared off into the distance, looking at the glow of the lights from the city illuminate the immediate landscape around it, creating a sort of dome of soft light. She was reminded of something that she both did and didn’t want to talk about. 

 

“Huh. I guess we’d probably be pretty bad at staying in touch if we ever got out of this whole thing.” She laughed a little, trying to make it sound like a joke, but the thought became even sadder to her after saying it out loud. Barry didn’t laugh at all. 

 

“No, I -- this year was just different, I guess. It was hard figuring out how to be at least kind of alone again, and it made dealing with it and juggling everything on my own pretty awkward. I was just kind of bad at -- well, everything. I wouldn’t… i-if our lives ever get to a point where we’re living apart from each other, I would make sure that we saw each other all the time. I-if you wanted to see each other, I mean.”  

 

Lup smiled wide. She turned her head away a little, pretending to look away from Barry in favor of looking at the moon for a moment, needing to hide the phenomenon of blushing that was so rare for her. She turned back to him and smiled slyly as she playfully pushed his shoulder. 

 

“Of course I’d want to see you,  _ Barold.  _ Don’t be such a dork.” 

 

They both laughed -- her talking to him like that was something of an inside joke between them at that point. It had become a language that symbolized their first few steps on the road to their friendship. And her slipping into that teasing tone with him was like a reference to their past, and portrayed a sharp contrast to how their friendship had grown and changed. It made her feel warm; there was such an obvious understanding between them of what it meant; there were so many little codes and small understandings that they had developed to communicate with each other. And the fact that they had been such close friends for so long that they could make references to different eras of their friendship was a novel concept. She had known Barry for three decades and the fluctuations and development of their relationship and of what she thought of him, how she felt around him had changed and evolved so much that it amazed her. They had a history together, a timeline with distinctly different stages; a story. One with ups and downs, one that was still happening, still unfolding. 

 

“...So much was going on right away this year that I didn’t really get the chance to tell you how good it was to see you. I mean like, seeing you after you had changed so much.”

 

Barry hung his head, looking apologetic. “Yeah, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to last very long. One of the downfalls of being an old man.” 

 

Lup half smiled, half frowned at him. “You’re not an old man. Well, you  _ were  _ an old man there for a minute, but you’re not now.” She turned and fully smiled at him, making sure that he looked up at her and stopped feeling bad. “You’re just regular ‘ol, immortal Barold again.” He smiled with her, but quickly sobered again. 

 

“I’m sorry if it was -- scary or anything, I guess. Probably wasn’t the prettiest thing to watch. I don’t really remember all that much past the point where I wasn’t able to get out of bed anymore. I’m not even sure how much longer I lasted after that. I’m sorry if I was any trouble or…”

 

Lup moved the hand that she had limply hung over the side of the railing and set it on top of his to reassure him. “It was fine. I’m glad that you didn’t have to be alone while that was happening to you.” 

 

He had been worrying that she might see him differently after watching him grow so physically ragged and weak and after knowing what he looked like as an old man on the verge of death. He was worried that it would be an image that she wouldn’t be able to get out of her head, that she would always see him as feeble and needing help and care after that. 

He didn’t know that she only felt closer to him, more fiercely dedicated to him and his safety, his life, after what that year had done to them. 

 

There was one thing towards the end that Barry remembered; how desperately he wanted to tell Lup how he felt. He had forgotten about so much, forgotten about regeneration, and he remembered the panic he went through and the heavy thudding in his chest as he tried to hold on to the one small piece of information that he knew he absolutely could not lose. He thought it was his last chance, his last moments alive, for forever. He obviously hadn’t said anything, though, otherwise it surely would have come up. He was scared that he had said at least something that was maybe a bit too much, and maybe that was why he hadn’t seen Lup a lot lately. But, it seemed like she wasn’t avoiding him after all; they were just both floundering with living so differently that year. 

 

“Well,” Lup sighed and looked out towards the city as more and more lights flickered off, the city falling asleep home by home. “I hope next year is as chill as this one. But, I kind of like us all under the same roof.” 

 

Barry smiled and tilted his gaze down as he tried not to blush. “Yeah uh, me too. Maybe we’re all kind of codependent.” Lup laughed.

 

“Yeah, I think we probably are.” 

 

As they stared off at the beauty of the landscape sprawling out before them, Lup thought more about their story. It was just so… interesting to her. They had a history together. A long story together, one that was happy and sad, uplifting and defeating, safe and dangerous. And in between all of those moments that defined their journey, their work together, there were soft little moments that were probably pretty boring from an outside perspective. Those were some of her favorite moments in the world. Just sitting next to him, walking with him -- being comforted by him, having the opportunity to comfort him back. Cutting his hair, her hands brushing against the tops of his ears. Having her hair braided by him, his hands brushing against her neck. And the times that she had gotten to lie next to him. Such mundane little acts that were just between them, unknown to anyone else in existence. Those uninteresting, soft and quiet moments; those were the things that made her heart quicken to think about. 

 

She really did love their story. She was looking forward to the next year, to all of them being close to each other again, under the same roof. And she hoped that it would be a year where they could all have plenty of those simple, little moments that made up the fabric of her happiness. 

  
  
  



	31. Bonded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Thirty One

 

“It’s… a man?” 

It wasn’t what Barry -- or any of them -- had expected. They had envisioned some sort of monster, a disembodied voice, a tentacle or some other shape made up of the oppressive, inky black cloud that the Hunger was made out of. But, a human man in a sharp suit with nice shoes that Merle felt were important enough to make note of wasn’t what anyone had in mind when considering the existential horror that they had been mystified by for thirty years. The world-consuming cloud, at its core, was a human man -- or at least represented by a man. It left them even more confused than before, but it also gave them a small amount of hope; it had been proven that it was something that they could communicate with. That meant that there was at least a chance of getting some useful information, or maybe even getting through to it, guiding it to a place of understanding. They heavily doubted the latter, but then again, they had never before dreamed that any of them would ever speak to it.

Barry couldn't imagine what it must have been like to experience what Merle went through. It sounded chilling, and the interaction ended with the acute pain of being burned from the inside out. But Merle seemed perfectly fine, emotionally. Barry had expected him to need talking into doing it a second time, but he agreed right away and was ready and gone, leaving behind his static outline sitting on top of a pillow before they had even landed the ship.

And landing the ship proved to be more difficult than it ever had before. Davenport flew them for hours, the remaining crew members diligently watching from the windows, scanning the planet’s surface. But, for hours upon hours, all they saw was ocean. The endless sea that covered the planet was of a perfect crystal clear and electric blue, unmoving water. There was no wind creating waves or ripples on the surface, no current or flow to be seen. And yet, it wasn’t clouded or covered over by debris and scum like stagnant water would normally be. It looked to be unmarred by any coral formations or plants or spires along ledges of rock. There weren’t even any fish, or any sign of life at all for that matter. The floor was an endless expanse of white sand, visible through the water even from where they flew far above the surface, and it seemed to be entirely flat for as far as they traveled.

There was a mounting anxiety in the air as a number of unanswerable, worrisome questions ran through their individual thoughts. What would happen if they couldn’t land anywhere? How tight and miserable would the year be with them having to live off of their reserves only? What if the next year also had no food? How would staying inside for an entire year affect them? Could the ship even stay running nonstop for a whole year? Just as their mental wheels started spinning out of control trying to work out the grim situations facing them for the year, they finally came upon something different. Underneath the water’s surface ahead of them was a gleaming city of massive glass domes and cylindrical towers, all lit up from within by an innumerable amount of dazzling colored points of light, softening and expanding into long-reaching diagonal columns of pastel hues as they traveled through the water. And, from somewhere in between the hundreds of domes of different sizes and colors, a long, shimmering, polished white platform rose from the seafloor and extended up and out of the water, presenting the Starblaster with a place to land. From their stations at various windows, the crew saw the rising platform and went running to Davenport, crowding the hallway to the cockpit. 

Davenport was cautious as he slowed the ship’s approach towards the underwater city. 

“I really don’t know about this. I mean, that’s about as much as a trap can look like a trap.” 

“Well, what are we gonna do otherwise?” Taako pushed his way through the others to address Davenport directly. “Keep circling the planet and risk screwing up the ship? It can’t just be constantly running for an entire year straight. It wasn’t made for that. You know that.”

Davenport sighed, his tone heavy with uncertainty. “Yeah. I know. I just -- I don’t feel good about this.” 

Lup nodded. “I don’t think any of us do. But, this is at least a chance. Otherwise we have none.”

After a short discussion with the crew, Davenport initiated their descent towards the platform. Once they landed, they heard a whooshing noise from outside that resonated through the ship. From the windshield of the cockpit, they watched as a glass dome started to appear around the ship from thin air. Once it was fully formed, the platform began to lower down towards, and then below, the water.

The person that entered the bubble and warmly greeted the crew once the platform had reached the bottom of the sea introduced himself as Node. His flowing, dark green robes trailed behind him as he led the crew to a hatch in the platform that revealed stairs leading down into the ground. At the bottom, they entered a hallway that gradually inclined until it met a door at the side of one of the large domes. As Node opened the door, a soft breeze rushed in and filled the hallway, dense with the scent of flowers and wood and wet dirt. Once they stepped inside, they saw that what they were entering was a small forest, but drastically different from any forest they had yet to see in their travels. Every rock was softly radiating different colored lights that moved sluggishly across their surfaces and were refracted into thousands of tiny beams through the heavy beads of dew that hung from the broad leaves of the trees. The ground was deep brown, almost black, and was springy, their every step bouncing lightly across it. Everything was light, airy, uplifting. It was almost too perfect to be real.

Node gestured widely, presenting the view to his audience. “This is just one of dozens of forests we have here. Each one has different species of trees and plants and other unique attributes. And each one is intended for different uses, which I’ll explain to you as we move through the domes. This one is simply meant to be an entryway. It’s why we have so many of these lights here; we’ve found that they’re considered to be soothing and welcoming.”

Davenport was confused by the presentation. “It sounds like you’re used to giving a grand tour but, as far as we noticed, you looked to be the only civilization on this planet... I can’t imagine that you get many visitors.” 

Node shook his head as he stopped leading them and turned to face the crew, his hands clasped in front of him, his posture and expression one of graciousness. 

“Oh no, we get plenty of guests from the surrounding planets. See, we don’t have ships of our own, but we constructed the platform to accommodate visitors. We often saw ships hovering above; they seemed to be trying to observe us. It took a while, but we found a way to bring anyone who wanted to meet us down here. We’ve had lots of wonderful visitors who have brought us many different things from their worlds.”

He turned and continued to lead the group around the perimeter of the forest until they came to a large gap between the trees. As they turned the corner they saw that the opening led to a wide area packed with beds of flowers, hundreds of different kinds and colors, all pressed so close side by side that the surface of the petals created a sort of colorful carpet that covered the circular clearing. 

Their host stopped at the border of the flowers and regarded them with a smile so deep and sincere that the crew could read the emotions on his face. He must have seen the flowers tons of times before, but he looked as though he was viewing them for the first time and almost moved to tears over them. 

“We initially only had a couple of flowers that grew here, but we got seeds as gifts from some of the other planets. Now we have so many flowers, and the people who live here as well as visitors get to enjoy them.” 

Upon Node’s behest, they all soaked in the sight of the flowers, silent as they noticed each beautiful, exotic bloom. 

Taako shook his head and broke the prolonged silence. “Man, sucks for Merle that he had to get back to that creep immediately for whatever reason. He would’ve really liked it here.”

“Who is your friend Merle? What happened to him?” Node looked to Taako with curious concern. 

“Oof, that’s gonna require a whole lotta background explanation that we can get into later, but the basics are that he’s our cleric and he transported to a magical room where he’s talking things out with… our enemy? Is one way of putting it, but more like just this very bad shitty thing that we’ve been dealing with for forever.” 

Node smiled and nodded, his face pleasant and full of understanding. “Of course, we’ll have space to talk later. It sounds like your friend is doing something of tremendous importance for you all. He must care about you a lot.” 

Taako lowered his eyes and looked back towards the flowers. 

“Yeah. I guess he really does.” 

***

Merle sat once again at the opposite end of a long, empty table from the besuited, angular man. The man stood up, his hands folded behind his back, his spine a perfectly straight line as he stood like a stone pillar, staring at Merle with piercing eyes.

 

“Well, you’re alive. Seems like you were telling the truth.” 

 

Merle shrugged. He didn’t understand what he had done to make it seem like he would have lied about anything in the first place. 

 

“Now do you trust me enough to tell me your name?”

 

“I believe it was John.” The man took a few steps towards the glass wall and stared out at the floor of clouds lit from underneath by red-orange light. “Though, I haven’t been John for a while now.”

 

They talked over the specifics of their meeting and how they would proceed from there on, agreeing to share information with each other. John actually was interested in talking to Merle, or rather even to anyone, regardless of the content. He had once spent a life dedicated to speaking to people, though to him it felt like an eternity separating him from that past. His jaw felt stiff and his tongue clumsy, but it all came back to him with every word that he spoke to the strange dwarf; his eloquence, his annunciation, his vocabulary. All things that he had been immensely proud of in a past life. All things that didn’t matter, that were too small to even be considered a speck in the grand scheme of everythingness and nothingness combined. But he found himself enjoying it anyways. 

 

The first thing that Merle inquired of John was what he was after. It was an amusing first question; of course the dwarf would try to put things into terms of the constructs created by people in order to understand their surroundings. One of the most important things to people was the ability to categorize, to put things into boxes, all packaged up for their understanding, because understanding something made it feel safe. The fact that Merle thought that there was a desire or a motive or some other mortally conceived construct fueling what he was doing was evidence already that there wasn’t even a baseline of understanding between them. It would be difficult to explain a cosmic idea to a mortal being without enveloping him into the consuming cloud and showing, rather than telling, the truths that John had come to understand. 

 

He did his best to explain anyways, telling Merle simply that he knew answers to what others might consider unknowable things. Answers to questions no one would ever think to ask, even if given an infinity to think of them. But, the simplest terms he could put his ‘motive’ into, what he thought might be a satisfactory answer for the dwarf, was that he wanted to grow. 

 

Then, it was his turn to ask a question. 

 

“I want to know how you keep coming back to life?’

 

Merle shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.” 

 

“Merle. This won’t work unless you tell me the truth, as well. When you come back to life, where  are you?”

 

“Big room on a ship.”

 

“A ship? You’re traveling between these worlds on a ship?”

 

Merle hesitated. “I think it’s time for me to ask another question.”

 

But John felt impatient and worried that, while it may have been true that he wasn’t being trapped, maybe the goal was to distract him. To avoid that, he resolved to keep their meetings short. He knew that Merle seemed interested in him enough to come back even after he killed him. He was sure that the dwarf would be back again and he could get information from him if he felt the desire and the patience to talk more the next time he was abruptly pulled aside. 

 

He raised a hand, summoning a burst of black flame, and the walls began to fade around him as the last ashen bits of Merle fell onto the black tiles of the meeting room floor. 

***

The crew was led to another dome for dinner. It was filled with trees that were planted in evenly spaced rows, creating a grand hallway that housed a long, stone table. Scattered along the table’s surface were dishes made of elaborately carved wood, all of the food covered in syrups with a golden sheen. The contents of the plates looked like a mess of bits picked up from the ground, mostly pieces of leaves and sticks -- it was unappetizing in appearance and Lup had to elbow Taako to get him to stop making an overtly disgusted face. But, it ended up being surprisingly delicious, even by Taako’s standards. The texture and most importantly, the taste of tree bark, sticks and leaves were in no way comparable to any other similar plant matter they had ever come across. 

Dinner with the people of the domes was warm and friendly, as if they had all known each other for years. Each of the crew members were in a way adopted as a main friend by certain inhabitants, though they still collectively complimented the crew and listened to their stories with rapt attention, offering their own stories back in kind. Most of the information and stories that they shared were ones that had been relayed to them by visitors from other planets; their own lives were peaceful, insular, and largely uneventful.

After dinner, Node excitedly led the crew to the door of a tube shaped hall that led to another dome. 

“This is our most decorated garden where we keep our rarest and most beautiful plants. All of the art that we’ve created is also stored here, along with all of the books of stories and poems we have written, in order to please the gods who sometimes come here to rest.” 

“Gods?” Davenport was alarmed. He had been on edge since their arrival, even with as pleasant as everything was, wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. Maybe that was going to be it -- they were about to reveal their intentions to enslave them or offer them up as sacrifices. He was on high alert, already running through scenarios and solutions, side-eyeing Lup and Taako, hoping that they would also be suspicious and prepared to fight their way out if needed. 

Node just nodded at Davenport with a disarmingly sweet smile on his face. He dramatically swung the door at the end of the hall open and stood aside to allow the crew to enter. They cautiously stepped inside; the dome was drenched in a warm glow and the heavy scent of flowers wafted along a cool breeze that they couldn’t pinpoint the origin of. There was a path of painted tiles that branched off and twisted and wound through the trees and around beds of flowers and ferns. There were moss-covered stone benches and chairs scattered throughout the forest, and the trees were clothed in deep red bark and topped with leaves of an autumn palette. They wordlessly walked along the path, looking over the paintings and tapestries hung from branches and stone walls or draped over the benches. As they neared the opposite side of the forest, a large grey throne came into view, and there was a figure sitting on it that looked to be at least fifteen feet tall. 

The feminine form sitting before them had a broad face set with three rows of three eyes each and no other features. Her eyes were closed and her head slightly downturned. Her golden hands were folded in her lap, laying over a crumpled quilt that cascaded over her knees and spilled onto the ground. The quilt was filled with blank, white squares… except for one that was partially obscured by her hands. All that they could tell was that it was filled to the edges with dark black and grey swirls, interrupted by spiraling loops of glimmering, silver thread. 

They silently observed the god, entranced, before gingerly changing direction and heading back, leaving her to rest. 

...

For the following months, the crew found limitless happiness, relaxing in the gardens and being doted on while growing close to the people who lived there. They spent very little time inside the ship, preferring to spend the days in the forests and gardens in large communal groups, with each other and with dozens of tranquil, friendly faces. Their time there was good for them and they wondered how they got so lucky as to have two years in a row with no discernable danger or hardship. There was just one problem hanging over them, and with every day they spent growing closer to the dwellers, that problem grew heavier -- despite their regular  trips to search for the light, there was no sign of it anywhere. 

***

“So, I was wondering… I would have guessed that your oxygen supply came from the trees, but the sun only barely reaches down here. Definitely not enough for the trees to perform photosynthesis.”

Barry walked through the center garden with Den, an inhabitant who had taken an immediate liking to Barry and proved to be similarly interested in scientific pursuits. He was especially fascinated with Barry’s specialty in planar research. 

“Photosynthesis?” Den looked at Barry quizzically. 

“Yeah, uh -- how plants use sunlight to synthesize the energy to sustain themselves. I thought that your plants here would have to be able to perform that function in order for them to give off oxygen as a byproduct, which I assume that they do, otherwise I’m not sure how we’d be breathing.” 

“Oh! Well no, actually all of the oxygen comes from a fungus that grows in the dirt -- they’re sort of like small, spongy beads mixed in with the soil and that’s what gives the ground this springy feeling. All of the plants here breathe, like us. They use oxygen to produce energy for themselves to grow, and then every part of every plant is edible once they’ve matured.” 

Barry’s eyebrows raised in intrigue. “A fungus? That is so cool, you’re gonna have to tell me about how that works.”

“I definitely will, but tell me about photosynthesis first! That sounds interesting -- if our plants had to rely on the sun, we wouldn’t have any of this. I guess we are very fortunate that our botanics behave differently than where you’re from.” 

Barry was excited at the prospect of getting to teach someone a subject from the ground up. “Definitely! The main premise of it is simple, but if you want, we can get into the microbiology and chemistry aspects of it and sort of continue to whittle our way down…” 

“Of course! Tell me everything.” 

Den and Barry spoke for hours, wandering the gardens and forests, periodically sitting down to excitedly take out notebooks and record some bit of information from each other. For the following weeks it became ritual for them to meet after breakfast and again at dusk for walks and conversations where they continued to educate each other on the unique knowledge that each of them held.

“Barry, I want to teach you something. I think you could put it to good use in your research.”

Barry’s interest was piqued, as it often was while he was talking to Den.

“Of course, let me at it!” 

Den smiled at Barry’s enthusiasm. “It’s a magical skill, so it should be no problem for you. It’s used to commune with nature.” 

Den led Barry to a small enclosed garden, free of any other people. He took him to a large flat stone in the center where they climbed on top and sat down, the stone responding to every touch with a soft blue glow. Den waited for Barry to get comfortable before beginning.

“Communing with nature doesn’t just mean that you gain insight into plants and water and dirt. While those things can be very useful for research and survival, being in tune with the environment puts you in touch with much deeper things, as well. It means that you have a sense of what belongs and what doesn’t. You can tell where buildings and other structures disrupt nature around you, you can tell when something isn’t naturally from where you are, like things from another plane of existence.” With that, Den stopped and gave Barry a small smile. “That’s how I know that you’re not just a visitor from another planet like everyone else who comes here. You’ve traveled from much further away than that.”

Barry nodded, taken aback, and also even more eager to learn the new skill than before; what Den was going to teach him could be more valuable than he originally anticipated. 

Den continued, his tone becoming one of concern and sympathy. “You must be so tired.” 

Barry was struck with emotion. The connection they had been forging was more than he had experienced with anyone on any of the planets they had visited. Maybe even with anyone, ever, other than the crew. He felt seen, understood, cared about. And it was all by someone that they would have to leave behind, whose safety couldn’t be guaranteed -- it broke his heart. 

Barry gathered himself, determined to make the most of the time that they did have. 

“Yeah. Sometimes, I really am.”

***

Lucretia spent most of her time over the months with a person named Ide, an older woman who had written a good portion of the books that were kept in the garden of the gods. They spent long days side by side, silently reading each other’s writing and then later exchanging comments and praise during long, leisurely walks. From Ide’s writing, Lucretia saw beautifully executed examples of recording facts and detailed accounts of real events with a sort of rhythm and poetry woven in. Not that Lucretia’s writing was dry or uncreative, but she suddenly felt inspired to add more to her writing, to explore the depths of her artistry and find whatever she could pull out from the places she had yet to attempt to reach. She had been very strict on herself and disciplined in how she approached her journaling, but after seeing the flowering beauty paired with meticulously detailed notes of Ide’s writing, she felt a thirst to welcome some changes and explore different approaches. To let herself make mistakes in search of a greater sense of herself and her creative potential.   

Davenport became friends with a dweller named Nie, but he found himself frequently missing Merle; being confined to one spot as they were, and unable to do a whole lot of work, there was a lot of idle time that normally would have been filled with cards and conversation. He allowed himself to be distracted by his new friend though, and soon was genuinely enjoying his company. Nie was lovestruck by the Starblaster and wanted to know everything about it, everything about flying, everything about Davenport’s history with piloting, how he learned, how it  _ felt  _ to fly. It reconnected Davenport with the part of him that loved what he did, loved being good at it, the  _ best  _ at it, and not just seeing his skills as a pilot as something utilitarian, something to be exceedingly cautious with. Telling Nie stories from his earlier days as a pilot reminded him of how daring he was, how little stress accompanied his piloting, of the breathtaking feeling of flying just to fly. He used to fly his own small personal plane on their homeworld, and he would spend hours a day never touching the ground, feeling connected to the wheel in front of him, to the metal hull encasing him, to the sound of wind and the sight of the world blurring past him. He was filled with a feeling like homesickness, not just for their homeworld, but for what he had been able to do there and for the reckless abandon he had once been able to enjoy daily. 

Magnus bonded with two of the dome dwellers; Doe and Nod. They showed him the best trails to go for runs on and low hanging, strong branches that were perfect for pull-ups. He taught them the basics of the sport he had learned back in Tesseralia so that they could teach anyone else who was interested -- they didn’t have a concept of sports before then, and they were grateful for his contribution to their culture and admired him immensely. They became like fans  of his, offering him whatever they could, assisting him in working out, and showering him with praise and encouragement. 

And Node was completely taken with Lup. He hung on her every word and was frequently left voiceless by the mere sight of her, or unable to breathe from laughing at her jokes and antics with Taako.

Taako had noticed him more than once gazing at Lup with a wistful expression on his face while Lup obliviously spoke to other dwellers or members of the crew. He was constantly applauding her talents, asking to be told more of her stories, and bringing her things he thought that she might enjoy; letting her borrow tomes of magic for her studies or offering her handmade jewelry that he insisted was simply from a reserve of gifts that they held onto for any of their visitors. 

***

Taako and Lup found a quiet corner of the garden to take some time to themselves, exchanging thoughts and opinions on their hosts and on the place that they were living in for the year. 

“I was a little creeped out at first -- yknow, it’s always suspicious when people are  _ too  _ nice. But, they seem to actually honestly just be that way.” Lup was luxuriating on the plush grass, laying on her back and looking up at the blurry outline of the faraway sun obscured by the massive  body of water above them. 

“Yeah. They actually are pretty okay.” Taako leaned back into the tree behind him. “And that Node dude; totally in love with you.”

“Pfft, they’re  _ all  _ just super nice here.”

“Yeah, but he seems  _ especially _ nice to you.”

Lup waved a lazy, dismissive hand. “It’s nothing. Besides, it doesn’t mean anything in the long run, even if it isn’t nothing.”

Lup lifted her head to look out towards the center of the garden and watched as the others interacted with different sets of locals. The truth was sad. But it was still the truth and important to acknowledge. Lup turned back to look at her brother, letting her head fall back into the grass.

“Anyways, you’ve hardly talked to anyone, so how would you know if he’s treating me differently than the others have been?” 

Taako rolled his eyes while shrugging his shoulders in an exaggerated expression of aloofness. “They’re all going to be gone, so what’s the point in talking to them? You’re just giving yourself something to be sad about later. I don’t have the energy for that anymore.”

“So you’re just never going to speak to or get involved with anyone else ever again, is that it?” Lup seemed annoyed at him, and the sour mood he had been in and out of all day made his first instinct to snap back, but ultimately he understood her point. Or at least understood why she would feel that way.

“It’s just really hard to care, LuLu. And I can’t pretend with that kind of stuff, you know that.” His words came off more gruff than he meant them to, and Lup responded with exasperation.

“Suit yourself. I wish you’d at least try, though. We don’t know how long this is going to go on for and you can’t just stay closed off for forever.”

Taako playfully faked looking thoughtful, cocking his head and raising a hand to his chin. “Well, I mean -- I could. If there’s one thing I am, it’s dedicated.” 

Lup scoffed. “I think you mean stubborn.” 

Taako closed his eyes and pointed his nose indignantly into the air. “I think I mean exactly what I said, thank you.”  

Lup side-eyed Taako and he stuck his tongue out at her in response. She blew him a sarcastic kiss and they went back to skygazing, interrupted by the occasional light commentary on their year before returning to the main garden with everyone else a few hours later. 

...

Barry looked up from the notes he had taken during his conversations with Den and tried not to stare as Lup sat up in the branches of a particularly large, sprawling tree with Node seated cross-legged and perfectly balanced on the branch behind her, his focus entirely on elaborately braiding her hair while she read a book. At the base of the tree, Taako was receiving the same treatment from Nie. There was nothing to be insecure about;  _ everyone  _ there was affectionate towards all of them, towards each other. 

He never did end up learning how to braid Lup’s hair that time that he offered to, when she was unable to do much for herself after Taako died. She didn’t want it done up again once he had unraveled her messy, days-old braid. Barry was pained by the momentary thought that she didn’t trust him to do it right, or that she was uncomfortable with how close he was while he was undoing her hair. And that maybe she already trusted Node more, was more comfortable being near him. But, then he remembered that she had wanted him to lie next to her instead, so that didn’t make any sense. He was being ridiculous and he knew it. He and Lup were friends, and there was nothing to analyze or pick apart when it came to her interactions with other people. Their platonic and familial bond that was built over the course of decades was a wholly different thing from any other type of relationship, and couldn’t be measured the same way. And her being around -- or even being  _ with  _ someone else -- didn’t have any bearing on the value of their own friendship. 

After all, the type of feelings he had were his alone to deal with, and he was painfully aware of that. It was a burden that he had brought upon himself, a weight in his heart that he would never be able to shake. And if watching her be treated well by someone else hurt him, that was the fault of his own insecurity and selfishness. He talked himself into swallowing those negative and self-effacing thoughts and he found that underneath it all, he felt happy for her; she looked relaxed, and she deserved that.

***

It was several months into their stay within the domes, and in the middle of their dinner that night, they heard a noise like a thousand claps of thunder at once, followed by the howling sound of a furious wind. From inside their glass enclosure, they saw the clear blue sea above and around them become steel grey. The water started to churn wildly, kicking up the sand of the sea floor and blocking out the sun. But, it was nowhere near time for the Hunger to be there. The crew rushed to the ship as the domes they passed through shook and creaked, deep grooves forming in the glass from the rushing circles of sand outside. 

...

As Davenport guided the Starblaster into the sky, fighting against the racing winds, they saw the source of the upset not far off. There was a  towering vertical tunnel of water and wind, writhing snake-like while spinning, extending from the water to the sky. The high-pitched sound of forceful wind could be heard from inside the ship as the crew gathered to observe the hurricane with shock. There were storm clouds crowded together above the violent tunnel of wind, and the jagged beams of lightning that shot down looked almost like they were forcibly being sucked from the grey clouds and into the tunnel, lighting it up from the inside. Underneath, the sea was glowing in a miles-wide circle around the base of the hurricane. And they knew the only thing that it could be was the light. 

Taako and Lup stood at the door of the cockpit and encouraged Davenport to continue on towards the storm, that they had an idea of what to do. And he knew that they had to, had to do something. They only had one place to stay that year, and they couldn’t let it be destroyed -- and more importantly, the friends they had made there needed to be saved, and they were the only ones that could do that. He trusted his crew with his life, trusted their abilities, trusted that they were going to save reality itself one day. So, with that trust and belief swelling in his chest, Davenport guided the ship barreling forward into the storm. Lup and Taako ran to grab the harnesses and cables that were normally used for when they needed to be lowered down from the ship. They tightened the harnesses on to each other and unspooled long lengths of cable before locking the reels. Donning helmets as they ran, they left through the door to the deck. 

On the deck, they struggled to keep their feet planted, hunkering down and grabbing at the railing, moving slowly along it. From a crouching position behind the rails, Lup could hardly see out of the shield of the helmet with the water constantly hitting her in the face, but she knew about where the cyclone was relative to the ship. Holding on to the rail in front of her with all of the strength in her body, she extended her other hand, trembling as it fought against the torrent. An unstoppable, unshakable magical flame formed around her hand, and she let the power gather until there were tears pouring from her eyes, the heat of her power rising into the core of her body, quickening her pulse. She could feel her organs twitch and her brain losing power, oxygen leaving her, heat rising from her face in such excess that it became impossible to see through the steam clinging to the the tempered glass on the inside of her helmet. She felt agonizing pain in her fingers, and she swore that she could feel her skin burning, hearing a crackling and bubbling that exceeded the sound of the storm and was audible through the thick walls of her helmet. 

Taako had his eyes closed and his head lowered as he focused intently on the whipping water, trying to find a sense of peace and meditation in the middle of chaos, his body being rocked by the fierce wind. A joint in his wrist twisted in pain when he lost his grip for a moment and his hand was ripped off of the railing, his palm catching a gust of wind that yanked his wrist backwards. Tuning out the pain as best as he could, he drew his hand back in and curled into himself more as he hunched over and murmured his incantations. Bracing himself and fighting with all of his strength, harder than he had ever strained his body before, he pulled at the waters in the opposite direction than they were spinning, trying to slow them, to coax the water into collapsing back to its home in the once peaceful sea. 

Lup shook violently as she struggled to hold on to her flame as long as she could, building its potency. And once there was nothing left in her, no more power to be found, her body about to give out, she released the sparking, bright white, furious flame that was engulfing her arm up to the elbow. As it left her and shot outward, it carved long wounds down her arm. Bits of the residual flame whipped back as the ball of fire hurtled at a near impossible speed from her, and they singed the straps of her harness. It was enough for the strap over her shoulder to break, and the strap around her waist was threatening to tear apart at any second. 

Barry was fixated on the scene happening outside as he stared helplessly from the small window in the door to the deck, stressing about what to do. As he panicked, he was simultaneously mesmerized to the point of forgetting to breathe by the massive, celestially bright stream of white flame that projected from Lup’s arm, penetrating through the ceaselessly cycling circles of wind. He watched as it careened dead middle into the stomach of the tube made of the pure angry energy of nature’s wrath. It splattered against the tower as it made impact, a portion of the light deviating straight up and down in crackling strings that turned deep red as they cooled and vanished, but the main beam burrowed and made its way to the center of the storm, a momentary hole appearing as it ripped through the solid wall of grey and set the inside of the cyclone on fire. But then, Barry saw Lup’s equipment falling apart, her arm grievously injured, and watched as she lost consciousness, her hunched form falling over and being picked up by  the wind. 

Without a moment of hesitation, he stumbled backwards and then sprinted to grab another harness from the row of hooks above the cable spools. He had the harness and a helmet on within seconds. Magnus followed up behind him to lock the cable in place and watch after him, and with that, Barry ran to the door and was out. The door flipped open behind him and the ship lurched as wind rushed inside of it. Magnus dashed over to brace the door shut and then peered out through the window. Barry was knocked over by the brutal pressure of the wind and he dropped to his knees, pressing his hands against the floor as hard as he could, lowering himself and pulling himself, crawling as the ship slanted and rocked. He made his way to Lup, who was being raised off of the deck, the cable pulling tight, her harness ripping. As Barry drew closer to her, he let himself go and was grabbed up by the wind and lifted off of the deck. Suspended in the air, tethered to the ship by the cable, he fought to push his hand towards Lup and was finally able to barely hook a finger through the remaining strap around her other shoulder. Taako was deep in meditation, his ribs feeling like they were being crushed as he held back the tunnel of water while pushing out every pain signal that wracked his body. 

Barry felt a shooting pain travel up from his wrist through the top of his hand and along the full length of his index finger, the joints threatening to pull apart, but he held on and grit his teeth as he drew Lup’s limp body towards himself. Finally, he was able to reach her with his other hand and he grabbed her, wrapping more fingers around the strap, his muscles going numb as he fought against the relentless onslaught of wind to bring her closer, close enough to get his other arm around her waist and then to bring her completely into his arms. He moved his hand from the shoulder strap to brace the back of her head, protecting her neck from being whipped around by the wind. He saw her closed eyes through the receding steam inside of her helmet as he held onto her. Still suspended in mid-air, at the mercy of the torrential winds, he planted his face against her shoulder and held on to her limp body tightly, desperately. Even if the cables snapped and they were hurled from the deck, he wasn’t about to lose his grip on her. He would fall with her into the sea before even considering saving himself. 

Magnus opened the door and fought to stay standing as the ship lurched once more. At the helm, Davenport compensated, smoothly righting the ship as he expertly circled through the storm. Magnus turned the handle of the cable reel with great effort to bring Lup and Barry in, the handle digging into his palm and fighting to push back against him. He got them to the entrance of the door and locked the spool before running to them, grabbing Barry’s harness and bringing them inside where they fell to the floor, then used his entire body to push the door closed. As Barry sat up next to an unconscious Lup, he finally found his breath, then gasped, felt lightheaded, and fell backwards as his vision first filled with sparkling white dots and then went black. 

 

While not completely eradicated, the watery spiral had the guts taken out of it by Lup’s blast and had shrunk in size as it lost its centering and wobbled wildly, threatening to collapse back into the water like a felled tree. Though weakened, the wind around them became less predictable, rocking the Starblaster as Davenport wrestled with the wheel to keep it from spinning out of control. 

When the sound of Lup’s flame ripping a hole through the heart of the massive cyclone just moments before echoed and boomed across and underneath the water, it woke something up. Lucretia watched on in awe from the common room window, struggling to keep herself on her feet so that she could continue to hurriedly write, fearlessly capturing every moment that was crashing down on them all at once. Though frightened and afflicted with a non-stop racing heart, she had a smile planted on her face as she saw everyone work in tandem to fight with everything they had to recover the light and save the lives of a beautiful civilization, of their friends. But her expression dropped as she stared wide-eyed out of the window, trying to piece together what she was looking at, and she paused her furious writing for the first time since their ordeal started. 

A bulge formed on the choppy surface of the sea not too far from the cyclone, and it grew until it began to break open, sending an explosion of forceful white spears of water shooting upward. A mound of water emerged from the center of the bulge as it broke, and it was was somehow cascading downward in rippling streams at the same time as the water around it shot straight into the air. And as the jettisoned water traveled far enough to touch the sky above, the dark clouds recoiled as if magnetically opposed to the upward streams of water. With the grey clouds rolling away and clearing the sky, the sun was exposed and its rays scattered across the endless sea in thousands of threads of golden light, reflecting off of the surface of the water and lighting up the world in brilliant yellow and orange hues, replacing the darkness in a burst of motion. 

The mound of downward cascading water continued to emerge from the sea and Lucretia looked on as eyes, each bigger than the ship, appeared from under the water. She realized that the falling water was the hair on the head of a figure with mirthful eyes and a curled smile, the long face breaking from the water, exposing a graceful neck and then sloping shoulders attached to lanky arms coming from a barrel chested body of rippling, swirling flesh that looked like sentient, ivory white stone. Lucretia watched wordlessly while the figure that could be nothing other than a god stood from the water up to the hips, and in slow motion raised a hand. It brought its colossal hand down, slashing through the cyclone and breaking it into two, the upper half of it falling over and crashing violently, causing the water below it to shoot upward from the displaced strip of sea. The shooting wave made impact against the underside of the starblaster and momentarily pushed it up, and as it plunged back down, the crew felt the nauseating rock in their stomachs of a moment of zero gravity. Lucretia fell to the floor and laughed with exhilaration as she scrambled to grab her journal and her fallen pen before it rolled away. She wrote as fast as she could, capturing with great poetic prowess every detail of the god that she witnessed first hand as it erupted from the sea. 

After the top half fell, the bottom half of the cyclone spun for a few more revolutions before it began to unspool and break apart, slowed and controlled and kept from spinning and reforming itself by the incredible amount of magical force Taako was exerting on it at the expense of his body. Then, all there was left was the whirlpool that had made up the base of the cyclone, tunneling downward and exposing the floor of the sea. And, at the bottom, resting nestled in the sand, was the light. As Taako felt his muscles untense from the dissipation of the spinning water and wind, his eyes momentarily opened and he saw the whirlpool below slowing and water beginning to drop from the inner walls and splash against the seafloor. And he saw the light, and he knew they had to get it to save that world. He threw himself back into his spell, working in the opposite direction that time to hold the whirlpool open, not knowing how they would get it but only knowing that they needed time to get down to it. It couldn’t be covered by the sea again or they would either lose it, or the storm might reform. He closed his eyes again, tried not to fall apart from the aching that twisted through his body, and trusted in his family to do the rest. 

Seeing an opportunity, Lucretia yelled out to Magnus and he was instantly on the same page with her. 

“Cap’n! I’ll grab the controls for the arm, you gotta take us down so that we can get the light!” 

Davenport stiffened. “Into the actively collapsing whirlpool?” 

“Yeah! Taako is out there doing something, I think he’s holding it back, we’ve got to get it while we can! I can grab it with the arm, you just need to get us down there!” 

Davenport smiled from the corner of his mouth, containing his excitement and keeping his hands and posture steady. “Of course I can get us down there. Fuckin’ watch me.” 

“Yeah!” Magnus threw his hands up and cheered before grabbing at the controls for the mechanical arm he had installed so many years before. Lucretia appeared in the doorway and ran to the back of the cockpit, sitting in one of the empty seats and strapping herself in, barely taking her pen off of the paper of her journal as she did so. 

Davenport sharply angled the ship down into the massive mouth of the steadily slowing whirlpool, water rushing downward from the inside as the walls began to fall apart. He wove them around falling streams of water that were cascading from above, and smoothly went into a nosedive as he raced to the bottom. 

“Get ready, Magnus! I’m bringing her back up as soon as we get close enough!” 

Magnus squinted his eyes, his lips drawn in a straight line, shoulders leaning forward as he gripped onto the individual levers for the arm. Just as it looked like Davenport was about to crash into the sea floor with the light in their direct line of sight, filling the cockpit with a blinding flash, Magnus sent the arm lunging towards it. He grabbed onto it without a second to spare before Davenport threw his weight back away from the steering wheel, his grip on it strong, knuckles turning white. The Starblaster nearly escaped scraping against the hard seabed as it elegantly curved back up and pointed to the sky. 

Taako was barely holding on, huddled in the corner of the deck where the railing met the body of the ship. His strength faltered and his body began to give out underneath him and the spinning walls around them started to collapse, a circle of waterfalls forming around them, the width of the whirlpool shrinking and closing in on them while Davenport had the ship only halfway out. Taako clenched his teeth and pressed his forehead against the rail in front of him, concentrating on the feeling of cold pressure against his head rather than the destroyed state of his body, and he held the waters back just long enough for the ship to emerge triumphantly from the hole in the ocean, a brilliant streak of silver topped with the glowing Light of Creation, charging into the sky, towards the golden sun. 

...

With the sky clear and the surface of the water sparkling and calm, the god lowered itself back into the sea, its massive form not causing so much as a ripple on the surface of the water. The ship was horizontal and flying leisurely back towards the underwater city. The mechanical arm had been withdrawn back into the ship and the light was still in its grasp, safe inside the compartment that housed the arm. The moment that he was able to, Magnus darted to the door of the deck and retrieved Taako, unconscious and limp, still on the deck only by the grace of the harness and cable. Underneath his tunic, he was bruised in the shape of the harness from the force it exerted on his body as he was pulled by the wind. When he regained consciousness, he found himself laid out along the side of the couch opposite from Lup. He tried to turn to fully look at her and winced. He couldn’t tell yet what was just sore and what might be broken or at least fractured. All he knew was that the next few weeks were going to suck. 

Lucretia and Magnus were moving back and forth from the kitchen, the supply cabinets, and the common room, tending to the twins. Barry was sitting at the unoccupied end of the couch on Lup’s side, a cushion over from where her head lay rested on a pillow. He wasn’t anywhere near as beat up as the two of them, but he wasn’t in perfect shape either. They rejoiced as Taako and Lup slowly made their way back into wakefulness within a few minutes of each other, Lucretia and Magnus hugging and smiling. They were still feeling light headed with exhilaration over what they had accomplished, what they had been able to do without losing anyone.  

Lup weakly smiled at the sight, and upon seeing her react, Magnus excitedly launched into telling her, in great detail, about how Barry rescued her, the pride he felt for Barry evident in every word. Lup was flooded with emotions at hearing about what Barry did for her, at hearing that they had won and retrieved the light, at the sight of the bandages wrapping her arm up to her elbow and at the pain she felt underneath that signified the incredible feat of combative magic she had performed. Too elated to stay lying down, she ignored the pain and sat up from  her place on the couch and turned to Barry. Her muscles weak, she reached for him with shaky arms and wrapped him up in a hug and without a second thought, kissed him firmly and quickly on the cheek. Despite all of the pain, she felt light and warm the moment after she realized that her lips were just against his face, and her heart began free-floating in her chest. The victory, her power, her rescue, Barry -- all of it was so dizzying that she was left laughing, blushing, smiling: happy.

And Barry laughed and blushed too, and he wrapped his arms around Lup as she barely clung onto his shoulders with her aching arms. He was grinning ear to ear as he held her close, grateful that Lup was alive, that they had all won at something together, grateful for the family that surrounded him and for Merle, for everything he had already done for them that year without even being there. Just, grateful. 

***

Upon their return, Barry spent some time on the ship to start his work on the light; he had come up with some ideas of new ways to test it after the conversations with Den had created a few threads of inspiration for him to grasp on to. Lup and Taako were carefully retrieved from the ship by a group of their friends and taken into the gardens and made comfortable while they healed. Barry smiled, knowing that Node was most likely dedicating himself to making sure that Lup and Taako had everything they needed, and more. Davenport had told Barry that he would be back on the ship soon after making sure that Taako and Lup were transported safely and all set up to rest, but Barry for once didn’t really mind being on the ship alone with the light. He was still glowing from their triumph, from the palpable excitement and joy that surrounded him via his crewmates, from Lup’s congratulatory peck on the cheek.  

…

It was getting late into the night and Davenport hadn’t returned to the ship -- he had probably got caught up with something. Barry knew from experience that it was hard to walk away from talking to the dwellers with how enthusiastic and charming they were. He was probably being asked to retell their story over and over. He thought about Davenport reenacting his daring piloting, about Lucretia reading aloud from the pages of her journal to a captive audience, about Magnus wildly waving his arms, his voice booming as he told a dramatized version of an already dramatic story. And he thought about Taako and Lup comfortably sleeping off their injuries.

Darkness settled in over the world and the Starblaster hummed as the automatic lights switched on, and Barry heard something underneath the humming -- something like words. There was a small voice growing in volume, and it was close, so close. No, it was closer than close; it was in his head. A hollow, negative little voice telling him that he was weak, that he had barely been able to do anything earlier, especially compared to everyone else’s role in their ordeal. It was saying that he could have done more, so much more,  _ you could have done more… _

 

_ J _ _ ust as I gave the sea the power to become a storm that could destroy the one ugly little mark in its body,         to crush the parasites living within it, I could give you power enough to stop a storm with a sidelong glance.  _

_ You would never      feel helpless again, you could be stronger       than you’ll ever be on your own. You already know that no matter what you learn,         _

_  no matter what you practice,      you’ll never be strong enough.  _

_ Not without me. _

 

Barry lowered his hands and stopped his work, torn out of his engrossment with his research by the whispering, insidious voice in his head. But, rather than looking off blankly, rather than feeling lost or frightened, rather than getting up and leaving the room -- he stared directly at the light, the look on his face almost one of annoyance.

 

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” 

And he got back to work. 

  
  
  



	32. The Silver Apples of the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Thirty Two

 

It was their thirty second planet, and there was something about it that made them all sleepy. Or more like spaced-out. Introspective, calm, quiet. Strong emotions were brought to the surface, but they felt it best to keep those feelings to themselves. It was something in the air, like the first lazy warm night of summer, that made them just want to think, to breathe, to dream. And that feeling lasted all day, every day. 

 

Barry smiled to himself as he put together his tent. Lup was nearby setting up her own while singing loudly, sort of narrating what they were doing through song and being her adorable, goofy self. It had been strange figuring out when to sleep at first, but they eventually adjusted and got into a rhythm. The world they were in was one of perpetual night time. There was no sun, but it wasn’t cold; in fact it was comfortably warm at all times with a consistently cool and gentle breeze. They figured out that the planet was heated from within; the soil was warm to the touch and digging further down had revealed that lower levels increased in temperature. 

 

The moon directly above them was one of at least four, as far as they had seen. They were static, unmoving, each hung in their own section of sky. The soft silver lighting spread across the planet evenly and gave every leaf and every patch of moss a mottled blue and silver hue, in direct contrast with little nooks and crannies that were filled with black shadow. The fruits that they found there had the same color scheme, except that it wasn’t from the lighting outside. They looked exactly the same when they took them indoors, but in the light they could see that the dense, heavy fruits were characterized by variegated patterns of transparency, making it easy to see the seeds inside. 

 

After finishing setting up their campsite, Lup and Barry sat by the fire, talking over their observations from throughout the day and putting together a game plan for when they woke up. 

Sitting on the warm ground, the heat of the fire on their faces, the air breezy and cool and everything soaked in silver -- it was an atmosphere that was difficult to leave, but they were getting tired. And then Lup came up with a solution.

 

“The hell we even sleeping in our tents for? It’s perfect outside.” 

 

“Huh, yeah. I mean I guess other than protection from any -- things that might be around.” 

 

“Yeah but, you’ve got  _ me _ here,” Lup snapped her fingers emitting a quick inch of flame as a demonstration. “Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this guy I know named Barold has become something of a badass over the years.” 

 

Barry blushed and he lost his words in the jumble she just created in his head -- how did she do that? It still felt like it did in those early years when he couldn’t keep his head straight around her, before he even knew why that was. They had grown so much since then, had become so close and comfortable, and he had made huge strides in his confidence... but she still could reduce him to a puddle with a word or a look, and she had no idea. He loved that she did that to him, he’d never stop loving it. How wonderful it was that he got so lucky as to have his mind melted by Lup on a near daily basis for decades. 

 

“Hah, yeah. I guess we make a good team.” Barry kept his gaze away as he spoke, trying to hide his face while he poked at the fire with a stick. 

 

Lup smiled at Barry, her eyes soft and pensive -- looking like they were trying to communicate  _ something. _ She tore her eyes away, jumped to her feet, and ran to grab her bedding from her tent. When she returned, she carelessly threw her blankets onto the ground a little ways from the fire and then looked at Barry expectantly. 

 

He followed her lead and went to his own tent to grab a blanket and pillow. He found himself thinking back on the time so many years before when they were camping and the world turned suddenly cold. He remembered feeling empty at the thought of missing out on time with her. But then she came to his tent, shivering, her blanket and robe wrapped around her shoulders. And he had been so dumbstruck that it took him a moment to realize his state of undress. But she didn’t care. She was comfortable with him, even back then. And it was one of several times where she needed him. He never felt so important in his entire life as the handful of times where she had  _ needed  _ him. 

 

He actually had been feeling somewhat important in other ways, too. It was finally dawning on him how significant he was -- it felt strange for him to think that way, kind of egotistical -- but it was true, wasn’t it? He was one of seven people with an impossible chance. They were making slow progress towards that chance, but at least they were still in the game. It had been thrust on them, sure… none of them planned on what happened when they left their planet. But he was kind of important back then too, wasn’t he? He had spent his whole life on work that had a large part in influencing what got them onto that ship in the first place. He never realized it until Lup was in his life, treating him with such importance and value. If someone like Lup saw something in him, there must  _ really  _ be something there. He was part of a team, a member of a family that had saved more than one planet. How amazing was that? He needed to start giving himself credit and taking more pride in the unimaginable things he had been a part of. 

 

But still, his main concern was to keep working and, if possible, find ways to work even harder towards their collective goal. He knew how important his contributions were more than he had ever allowed himself to realize before. He had become driven, determined, inspired by the people he was with. He had more than one person that he would lay down his life for, even if he wasn’t basically immortal. And having people he would die for -- that was a gift. A gift that pushed him forward, that pulled him through and helped him to survive tragedies and horrors unlike anything anyone else had ever experienced other than them. 

 

The fire started to fade while Barry and Lup sat on top of their blankets, looking up at the stars. As the warm glow of the fire extinguished entirely, the only light left was from the streams of silver that fell from the moons. He turned his head a bit to look over at Lup, and seeing her bathed in the silver light, he was reminded of… something. Where had that thought gone? There was something that was  _ just  _ there, but as soon as he tried to fully form the thought in his head, it was gone. There was a trace of a feeling of familiarity -- he had seen Lup at night outside in the moonlight plenty of times, but there was some memory more significant than any of those times that he had in his grasp for a split second. It was making his head hurt trying to bring it back. There was a memory, of her, the moonlight. A memory that was so important, so tender, close. But it couldn’t be placed. And it made him feel hollow -- he was  _ just _ feeling warm and positive and relaxed from sitting by her and stargazing, but then looking at her blanketed in moonlight so near him, he found himself suddenly drowning in sorrow and loss. Why? They were together, they were safe, they were happy. How could he possibly feel sad?

 

As if she could sense the mood-shift, Lup turned to Barry. He had been so distracted by his thoughts that he hadn’t turned away from looking at her. He realized with embarrassment that she was looking at him and that he was blankly staring back.

 

“You okay there?” 

 

“Ah, shit, y-yeah, sorry. I uh, spaced out.”

 

Lup gave him a sly smile before turning her gaze back at the sky. He wasn’t sure what that smile meant, but he was too shaken to try and figure it out. There was something else that he needed,  _ needed  _ to figure out, that was on the tip of his tongue, ready to come tumbling out of his head, but was just… stuck somewhere. What was it.  _ What was it?  _

 

…

 

When they woke up, they packed up their gear and continued their hike, mapping out the area as best as they could in the dark. With the constant night time, they hoped that it might make the light easier to find. They trekked through hilly lands and never ending fields of blue-black grass for hours, chatting nonstop, still somehow having so much to share with each other, so much to say even after three decades of knowing each other.  

 

“Oh wow, that’s beautiful.” Lup looked down the gently sloping hill that they had just reached the top of and caught sight of a large, silver pond. She looked over to Barry, vibrating with excitement. 

 

“Uhh…” Barry was confused, Lup obviously wanted something from him but he wasn’t sure what. 

 

“Well. Use your neat new trick! Talk to nature or whatever you learned last year, check out if it’s safe to swim. Make sure there’s nothing scary chilling in there.” 

 

“Oh, shit that’s right, yeah okay.” Barry was silent for a moment as he channeled his thoughts towards the silver pond. His eyes darting around under his closed eyelids, he felt through the water from their place at the top of the hill and found it empty and undaunting with nothing but large plants rooted to the floor of the body of water. 

 

“It uh, seems fine.” 

 

“Awesome!” Lup ran down the hill, almost tripping over herself as she shed first her backpack and then her robe, tossing them to the ground. Barry ran after her, unsure of what was happening, only knowing that he was going to follow her like he always followed her. 

 

At the edge of the pool, Lup stared into the water before gingerly extending a foot and dipping it in. The water was impossible to see into; its surface was like a mirror. In her shirt and shorts, she moved forward and fully stepped into the silver pool, disappearing more and more under the reflective surface as she waded out and sank further into the water. 

 

“Well?” Lup smiled at Barry, still standing at the edge of the water, with arched, expectant eyebrows. 

 

“I’m uh… oh I can go back if you just wanted to be alone or--”

 

“Hell no, I want to hang out with you! I’m not trying to ditch you, c’mon.” 

 

“Oh, okay.” 

 

She watched him as he hesitantly stepped closer to the water and laughed. “You sure you wanna wear your jeans in here?” 

 

“Well, I just- I don’t, I mean…”

 

Lup sighed and kicked her feet around under the water, turning away. 

“I’ll look the other way if you wanna get down to your boxers, you doofus.” her voice was assertive but light in how she made fun of him for being so shy around her after all of their time together.

 

Barry’s face was burning red, but he complied -- he wanted to join her, but he needed that encouragement to know that he wasn’t going to make her uncomfortable. Because he wanted and needed to continue to follow her, to experience the beauty of sinking into a pool of liquid silver with her. 

 

The feeling of the water was like being in nothing at all; it was so light against his skin. Lup turned back around as she heard him slipping into the water and smiled. She dipped backwards, letting the water take her body as she lifted her feet off of the bottom and floated further into the center of the pool. 

 

He watched her drift away and for some reason, he felt a sudden heaviness drop on him at the memory of years long past where she had drifted away from him for a while, cutting their time together down and withdrawing from her teasing and touching and emotional openness. 

 

He could still sense the way it had set him on edge, the strange tension and pressure from feeling her distance, the constant worry that he had done something terribly wrong. But then he remembered just before that, when she was so serious and careful with him, when she realized something even he hadn’t and revealed that she was concerned about respecting him as a colleague and friend. He still was unsure how to feel about it, and it felt strange to say that he  _ deserved _ any of that; it just sounded so entitled. But, more than anything else from that time, he remembered the feeling of her hand on his cheek, her thumb against his lips, hushing his nervous, rambling mouth. He could feel his face turn red, his pulse quicken, and his heart melt at the memory of such tenderness every time he thought about that night, no matter how many times he had replayed it in his head over the years.  

 

He watched as Lup floated and rolled around in the water, dunking her head under for a moment and then slowly emerging, her breath as she resurfaced like a whisper of wind in the gentle summer night.

 

***

 

After her experiences the year before, Lucretia had been allotting herself time to write creatively. It wasn’t that she never did, but she had definitely let it go by the wayside in favor of meticulously recording their journey along with the stories and histories of any populations they came across. It was a muscle that she found inspiration in flexing again, and that particular year with its idyllic scenery and -- whatever it was in the air that made everything so dreamlike, was making it all the easier for her to indulge in flowery prose and for drawing pictures from her imagination, rather than illustrating their records. She took to taking walks by herself into the uninterrupted night, being careful to let others know exactly where she would be going and how long she planned to be gone for. It was too bad that they had to be so careful, all of the time -- it would have been nice to just wander aimlessly, without a thought or a destination or a time-limit or a chaperone. That used to be something that she did when she needed a break from hours of non-stop writing, or when she needed to clear her head in order to find the direction of her words, to reconnect with her muse. Maybe closer to the end of the year she would treat herself to a walk without time or direction or paranoia. It would still be irresponsible, but maybe that was what she needed. 

 

Magnus was disappointed that there weren’t any animals or people on their planet. He had enjoyed getting to make so many meaningful connections over their last couple of years, and he didn’t want that streak to end. It was always hard leaving people behind, but at least they had been able to retrieve the light both times, leaving those worlds with a chance of survival. The pain of having to leave at the end of each year, of never being able to keep friends didn’t override his desire to make those connections, though. He kept his fingers crossed that they would end up on a planet where he could have people and animals to care about again. In the meantime, as always, he would do everything he could to protect his family. Like following Lucretia from a reasonable distance when she went on walks by herself in the dark.  

 

***

 

Barry wanted to leave his room to see if she was on the deck. But he was always worried whenever he did find Lup out there. Was she only being polite when she would ask him to join her? Was it an obligation? Was she maybe trying to have time alone and he was interrupting it? The fight between wanting to see her and wanting to do the best thing for her was always won by the latter -- and so for the most part, he would try to hang back, to allow her her free time. After all, they were all around each other all of the time, and then often around whatever inhabitants of the planets there were, if there were any. She was such an independent force, of course she would need to recharge. And he couldn’t be attached to her side like a lost kid. She needed her seldom found time and space. And he supposed it was probably good for him, too. Getting to bed early, sleeping through the night, taking a couple hours to be Barry before and after sleep. But still. There was only one thing he wanted before he went to bed each night and as soon as he woke up every morning -- to see Lup. 

 

He wrestled with himself between wanting to see her, and with the idea that he might be bothering her if he did. He knew he was making assumptions of what she wanted though, and he had to tell himself that he was being ridiculous, that she did enjoy seeing him and being around him and that it wasn’t an act of obligation. He knew that Lup didn’t do things that she didn’t want to do. So, it had to be true that she did actually like spending time with him, and if she did want to be alone, she would tell him, so  _ stop worrying stop worrying…  _

 

He finally went to look for her out on the deck. He opened the door to see that she was at the far end, looking over the valley that spread out below them from their place at the top of a mountainous plateau. 

 

“Hey Lup.” He walked up next to her and she turned to wordlessly smile at him, and he knew, for sure, that she was happy to see him. 

 

They watched together as hundreds of glowing white moths fluttered around the valley below, catching the moonlight on their wings. Luminescent white dust fell from underneath the clouds of moths, creating a hazy dry mist that collected and pooled even more silver light all across the floor of the sweeping valley. 

 

How could he look at such beautiful things across so many planets while standing next to her without his heart overflowing, without it being impossible to hide his feelings anymore? 

He went from living inside of the walls of labs and the walls of lecture halls and the walls of his small apartment to being uncontainable, to being set out into the vast expanse of endless universes. Barry, who had lived in the same city for his entire life, who had only ever left that city to attend or give lectures or to work within different walls of different labs with people whose names he forgot as soon as he was back home. That same Barry was at that moment existing in the thirty second planet he had visited in so many years, standing next to the most mind bendingly impressive, talented, intelligent, and easy to love person who existed in all of those worlds. He was in love with her and he was standing inches from her. The fact that he got to feel such love at all in the first place was more wonderful than anything that had happened to him in all of his years on their home world. 

 

He still shuddered any time he thought about that hypothetical question that haunted him: what if he had never ended up on this adventure? He imagined himself alone, long retired, growing old and dusty and useless in the same apartment. After his career would have ended, he really would have been useless. How close he had been to living an unremarkable life, a life gone unremembered and unmentioned except for the scientific publications with his name somewhere in tiny print in the footnotes, the essays that would, while useful, end up buried beneath hundreds and then thousands of other, more up to date and relevant scientific essays. It would never have mattered how good he was for his time, or how much he helped things to first be discovered and first be developed. It all would have been buried and gone and his name would have never been said by anyone else ever again, maybe even before he was dead. An unremarkable life, spent studying and looking at and working to understand remarkable things from a safe distance. 

 

But he was in them. In those remarkable things. Interacting with them directly, existing as part of them, his life changed, extended, woven together with others, with people who would remember his name, even if he did end up dying permanently eventually -- he knew for sure that he was among people who would hold on to his name, his memory, for hundreds of years after. He wouldn’t be lost to time. He wasn’t lost at all, anymore. 

And, he wasn’t unremarkable. He was something. Someone. And most amazingly… he was someone to  _ her.  _

 

Lup caught Barry smiling to himself. She paused a moment, feeling a stirring in her heart from watching him in a moment of quiet happiness. It was nice to see him like that, and she wondered what he was thinking about. 

 

“Hey there, dreamy.” 

 

He turned and looked at Lup. And then her wistful expression perked up into one of surprise. 

 

“Oh -- oh, um, I meant like, it looked like you were faraway, like dreaming. Sorry, hah… wasn’t trying to be weird and hit on you or something.”

 

Barry shook his head and chuckled. “Oh, yeah okay, yeah.” Of course.  _ Of course.  _

 

She looked concerned. “I mean, of course you’re a hunk, hah, I’m just- sorry. That was kinda weird.” She wrinkled her nose and shrugged her shoulders and laughed it off, but she seemed flustered.  

 

_ Lup  _ seemed flustered. 

 

“No, no you’re fine, heh.” Barry tried not to choke on his words as he scrambled to pick up every letter and syllable that had just come tumbling from Lup’s mouth. 

What what what… it was just a misconstrued word, followed by a joke, and he needed to stop being so -- so  _ him _ . It was nothing to go out of his head over,  _ but still… ‘dreamy’, ‘hunk’...  _ they were silly terms that she would use to joke with anyone, nothing serious, and the first one wasn’t even meant to be in that context, it was just -- he couldn’t help himself. Hearing certain words, tones, nicknames from Lup… it would never stop knocking him off of his feet. She could uproot him entirely if she so much as wriggled her nose  _ that way  _ or smiled bigger than normal or snorted when she laughed. He was sure that his heart would never beat normally again. It was a good thing that his body was reset each year, because he was pretty certain that the constant rollercoaster of emotions and adrenaline he had experienced ever since he first met Lup would have taken years off of his life. And he would have thanked her for it.  

 

***

 

There was only a month left before the Hunger would descend on them. Barry and Lup sat in the lab as he worked on something for Magnus and she passed the time waiting on him by idly spinning around in her chair. She stopped herself abruptly with a foot against the floor when she thought of something. 

 

“Wanna go back to that pool?”

 

Shivers ran up Barry’s spine when he felt Lup’s breath on his ear as she leaned in to whisper to him. He felt his face turning red, but did his best to force out an answer so that there wasn’t an awkward, prolonged silence. 

 

“Yeah. L-let’s do that.” He wasn’t sure why she had whispered that to him when they were alone in the lab, but there he was, completely useless and unable to think straight because of it. 

 

“Cool!” Lup leaned back into her chair. “After you finish up this solvent then, yeah?”

 

“For sure.” Barry sighed and collected himself. “I still can’t believe that Magnus managed to get rubber cement on his  _ entire  _ hand. I don’t care what he says, it absolutely looks like he just dunked his hand into the container.” 

 

Lup snorted. “But Barry, isn’t this exactly what you signed up for? Making solutions that’ll melt off glue, but not skin?”

 

Barry chuckled. “I mean, I guess I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t at least a little bit fun figuring out ways to fix silly shit like this.” He eyed the beaker of cloudy liquid as he held it in front of him, swirling the contents. “Well, I think this should probably do it. Let’s go do a patch test to make sure he’s not allergic to anything in here, get his hand unglued from itself, and then we can head out?”

 

Lup beamed. “Sounds like a plan, science man!” 

 

***

 

He could only faintly see her from a few feet away in the darkness as they quietly swam through the mirrored water. But he could see that there was something... different in Lup’s eyes. Barry couldn’t put his finger on what it was, he could only  _ see  _ it. Her eyes were more relaxed than usual, slow, and lingering on him enough to make him increasingly nervous. It was just the atmosphere. Everyone was kind of unusually relaxed and spacey. 

 

“You’re so far away, Bear.”

 

_ I’m so far away… that means she wants me to be close? Gods, I love when she calls me Bear. Wait, what do I do, what does she want me to do, she said I’m far away so she wants me to be close, right? _

 

“Oh, uh, sorry.” Barry waded his way closer to Lup, swimming slowly once he reached the bit were it was too deep to touch the bottom. 

 

Lup went from fluidly waving her arms under the surface so that she could keep herself upright, to tilting back and floating, face-up, looking at the stars. Barry carefully worked to keep himself above water enough to breathe without floundering and disrupting the stillness of the water. Once he was near her, she looked over at him, continuing to float. Barry had to keep himself from gazing at her with wonder and longing; she looked radiant, all suspended in silver, eyes tranquil, her lips sort of melting into a relaxed smile, the bit of her hair and clothes that were visible above the reflective surface wet and wrinkled and waving in the water. She narrowed her eyes on him, looking thoughtful. 

 

“Do you know how to float?” 

 

Barry tripped over his tongue, not wanting to admit that he didn’t know how to do yet another simple thing. She just smiled at him more and righted herself again, only her head peeking up, her hair limp and flat, heavy with water.

 

“Here.” 

 

She found Barry’s hand under the water and pulled at it and he drifted closer to her. She set a hand behind his back and the other at the center of his chest where she applied a gentle pressure.

 

“Just lean back.” 

 

He did as she said, even though his body instinctively panicked at the sensation of moving backwards into nothingness. As he leaned back, she took her hand from his chest and put it under his back, a bit down from where her other hand was already carefully curled around him. Once he was horizontal, he could feel how lightly her arms were touching him, just enough to keep him from sinking. 

 

“Now, you’ve gotta just relax your body -- you can’t be all tensed up. I know that’s hard for you.” She laughed quietly as she adjusted her arms so that her palms were lying flat against his back rather than being scooped under him. 

 

“And just take deep breaths -- you feel how you kind of float a little more when you breathe in? You can just do that if you feel yourself sinking. Just make sure to stay relaxed and keep your body reclined -- like that.” 

 

She let her hands fall a bit away from him and he stayed afloat, melted to his core by her touch and by her softer than usual voice as she looked down at him, into his eyes, the moon and the stars behind her as he looked back up at her, feeling weightless.

 

Weightlessness. And Lup. And the moon. The silver pond, the absolute silence of a world where moths were the only living things besides them. How could he possibly keep his feelings to himself, how could he exist in a moment so beautiful with her near him, her voice so quiet, her touch so soft. She kept looking into his eyes as he looked up at her.

 

_ Should I? Should I… maybe it would be okay. Maybe she would laugh and we’d talk about it and it would be fine and we could still be friends and it would be over with, I wouldn’t be keeping it from her anymore. I hate not telling her, it feels like lying, we talk about everything else, I’ve told her every single thing about me, good and bad, except… _

 

Barry’s throat grew tight and strained until he could barely breathe and he had to will away the tension that was threatening to build in his shoulders and sink him. 

Lup winked as she let go of him entirely and floated backwards and away.

 

“I think you’ve got it.” 

 

She leaned back into her own floating position and they silently watched the stars, suspended in the opaque silver water. The moment had passed. So, he instead resolved to enjoy the silence with Lup, just a couple of feet away from her, feeling like he was suspended in space. He tried to forget that he was on the cusp of saying something… even though he knew that he was fooling himself thinking that he really would have. 

 

...

 

He didn’t know how long it had been. It felt like hours of uninterrupted peace. But then it was broken. 

Something brushed up against the back of Barry’s leg and he at once realized that he hadn’t checked the pool again and had made the mistake of assuming that it was safe after the first time they were there. Whatever it was, it was gone after swimming past him. He leaned up, stopped floating and looked to Lup. With his eyes wide, he motioned for her to leave the water. She nodded and started to silently make her way towards the edge of the pool. Barry moved to follow, but at the same time made an effort to concentrate, to try and sense what it was in the water, whether it was something that could follow them on land, whether it was right next to them, still. But all he could sense were large plants along the bottom of the pool, same as before. Maybe one just had a long sort of tendril that brushed up against him and he was worrying over nothing. But then, he heard thrashing and he looked over just in time to see Lup flailing before being pulled under the water. And before he could react, he was pulled under, too. 


	33. The Golden Apples of the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Thirty Three

 

Lup ran across a field of dry grass, her arms raised up and face towards the sun. It was so warm there, and with just the right amount of sunlight to feel amazing on her skin. The breeze was cool and gave her a constantly giggly feeling, like helium to the head. She had even more energy than usual, and all she wanted to do was run and spin around and fall into the grass that was dry and brown but somehow still soft and plush. 

The autumn planet was full of sound -- the flowers were all withered and in varying shades of rust and brown, but not dead. All of the petals had woody exteriors that knocked against each other in the wind, making soft, hollow chiming noises that echoed across the vast valleys. Meanwhile, some sort of bugs that they never quite saw made little whistling and chirruping noises from all directions, and together the sounds filled the air with layers of gentle music. It was always daytime there with the sun fixed in one spot in the sky, paused on the edge of sundown, making everything hazy and orange.

 

It was always perfect picnic weather there and Lup was trying not to be too eager, but ever since they had arrived, all she wanted to do was have a picnic with Barry. They had work to do first, of course, but once they had ran all of their preliminary tests and got their year planned out, they would start going out to look for the light. They hadn’t seen it land which meant there was going to be a lot of searching anywhere that they could. And that meant that her and Barry would probably be going on a lot of outings, testing and experimenting and learning about their world for the year while also keeping an eye out for any sign of the light. That meant hikes and camping and long conversations and bonding over discoveries. And, plenty of opportunities for picnics. 

 

***

 

“Nothing here is green.” Merle pouted. They had convinced him to hang around for at least a little bit before going to see John -- it felt so strange to them to say it like that, as if he was off to visit a friend or a coworker at a local bar. 

 

Even though he didn’t have to go too long without her, Taako was especially irritable after Lup’s death the year prior, and he wasn’t having it with Merle’s petty complaints. 

 

“Is that the only thing you were hanging around for? Not maybe uh, any of us or anything? Or even my cooking, maybe? You like getting your ass killed by this creep that much? Pretty kinky of you, Merle.” 

 

Taako stuffed his face into the pantry, aggressively searching for spices while Merle pulled a face at him behind his back. 

 

“Merle’s making faces at you.” Magnus sat cross-legged on the floor in the entryway of the kitchen, feeling bored. Barry and Lup were off working and Lucretia and Davenport were quietly sitting in the folding lounge chairs out on the deck, reading and being more boring than Magnus could handle at the moment.

 

“Let him. Hopefully his face’ll get stuck.” Taako found what he was looking for and set back to cooking. 

 

Merle scoffed at Taako’s abrasiveness. “You know, I’d appreciate a little bit more appreciation for what I’m doing. It’s kind of a big deal!”

 

“Tch.” Taako turned to Merle, wooden spoon in his hand. “I’ll  _ appreciate  _ it whenever you get something out of him more than his name and his predilections for board games. And oh uh, what was that in exchange for? Him getting to know all about our ship and our questionable immortality? Let’s hope that doesn’t come back to bite us.” 

 

“Harumph.” Merle turned and left the kitchen. Magnus watched the exchange with rapt attention, feeling less bored but also a little worried for Taako. He was about to say something when Taako turned away from the pot he was stirring to look at him. 

 

“Did he just straight up say the word  _ harumph?” _

 

***

 

“That looks like the perfect spot to take a break and get into some of this grub, yeah?”

 

The spot that Lup pointed to was under a large tree with massive roots that twisted and rose to the surface, curving above ground before diving back under. Barry looked just as excited as she did and started making his way towards the tree as soon as she pointed it out. He was always so eager to do those kinds of things with her, things that were insignificant and small compared to everything else they did. It was part of what made her love being around him; mundane things became fun and exciting and he never shot down ideas or seemed bored or like he was too good or too mature for something. He allowed himself to enjoy things and he smiled easily and he laughed easily and... 

Their lives were hard.  _ Everything  _ was so hard. But things were easier with him. 

 

...

 

They sat against the trunk of the tree for a while after they finished eating, looking towards the constant sunset. Barry turned away from the scenery set out before them, rolling the back of his head lazily against the tree to look over at Lup. 

 

“It’s pretty cool, but it’s kind of weird  ‘watching’ it when it never changes.” 

 

“Yeah. Beautiful, but still kind of freaky in a way.” As she spoke, she peeled her eyes away from the valley of gently waving flowers soaked in the golden rays of the mellow sun to meet Barry’s eyes.

 

But, as she tried to continue to talk to him, she paused, suddenly grabbed by a memory. She was reminded of something -- something heavy, so heavy, so deeply familiar but impossible to pinpoint. The way that the fuzzy and incomprehensible memory leapt out at her made her head hurt. Of course she couldn’t remember every single moment of every year, but she had never had some memory almost come to her that felt so overwhelming and important, just to leave her like that. Her brow furrowed and she was silent longer than she realized as she fought to grasp the memory that floated further from her the more she tried to make sense of it. Why? Why would it be familiar in such a meaningful way -- it was just a picnic under a tree. It had happened before, they’d been out traveling and stopped in the shade to eat together. But it wasn’t any of  _ those  _ times that she was remembering… it was something else. Barry looked over and saw the shadow of concern on her face.

 

“Hey, you okay?”

 

Lup was jarred out of her thoughts by his voice. Fuck. Well, if it was important enough, it would come to her eventually, right? 

 

She smiled. “Yeah, I’m good.” 

 

But even later that night in bed, it didn’t stop itching at the inside of her head. The tree, the sun, the picnic. Barry. What could possibly be so important about it that she couldn’t shake it from her mind? What the fuck was that feeling? The harder she tried to grab onto it, the more vigorously it wriggled out of her hands and slipped away. She couldn’t even perceive the shape of the thought, just that there was a pit, an absence of something every time that she thought about the tree, the sun, the picnic, Barry. 

 

She left to go out on the deck, but it felt wrong without it being dark, without the stars. She tried to gather her thoughts anyways, tried to focus on something else. But her head was just not letting her take it easy, and she ended up just going from one nagging thought that played on her emotions to another one. 

 

She had been in love for so long. 

 

It hadn’t let up even the tiniest bit. She was doing her best to lean into their work and to just be happy about their ever-growing friendship. It felt good to be excited about spending time with him, about accepting his support and supporting him back. If she could just focus all of her pent-up feelings into energy and motivation, into working fiercely alongside him, looking for answers, diligently studying and searching and improving -- that was like love. It was all an expression of love. Every time she excitedly called his name,  when they had fun, when they accomplished something together… that was all love. Those were ways of showing and giving love and she relished each and every one of those moments. She could love him, be in love with him, show him love, have days and years of love with him, she could do that and she was doing that. Maybe not in exactly the way she wanted to, maybe not in the way that someone who got to be in a relationship with someone under normal circumstances got to express love, but still. That was their romance, that was her way of fantasizing that maybe they had something together. 

 

If she could just imagine that they had gotten together, that they loved each other, that they had been together for so long that the way they showed love to each other was different, that they didn’t touch much, that they were focused on working hard for their family, that they said I love you to each other only through compliments and praise and help and support… maybe she could bear it? But pretending too much had almost gotten her into trouble a couple of times. She would get caught up in thinking of them as having been together so long that they didn’t need to be all over each other, and that  _ that  _ was why they didn’t touch the way she wanted to. And she would sometimes almost let it slip that she loved him as a reaction to the running fantasy in her head that they were together. 

 

She ran her tongue along the inside of her mouth, over the spot where an indentation had formed from every time she bit at the inside of her lower lip to keep from saying the wrong thing. Because, saying the  _ wrong  _ thing to Barry was to tell him how much she appreciated him, cared for him, loved him? Even though they had each other, they still had such a long and lonely existence -- yet, telling him that she loved him, that she felt a connection so deep towards him that it kept her up at night… that would be wrong? She knew, she was sure. It would be the wrong thing to do. How, though. How. 

 

There was a balance of care that they all had for each other. And if she cared about him, she would be conscious of the fact that he not only didn’t have to reciprocate her feelings, but he would be allowed to be uncomfortable with them. So, it  _ could  _ be wrong. It could ruin everything. 

 

But, it was just so -- good. So soft, protective, sincere, everything, everything, everything. Her feelings for him came from a tender and vulnerable spot in a well-guarded little alcove in her heart. They came from somewhere within her that was nothing but goodness, and that was why… that was why it wouldn’t allow her to be selfish. 

 

She wanted to ask him to stay with her every night instead of leaving for his bedroom. She wanted to ask him to go with her out on the deck every time that she did. 

 

_ Wake up with me before the sun rises, don’t go to your room alone, don’t have coffee in the morning alone, don’t work alone, don’t cry alone, don’t breathe alone, don’t don’t don’t ever be alone.  _

  
  


But instead, she would watch him go. She had to just watch him go. Watch him go and leave her alone. 

 

_ Stay with me.   _

 

But she never said anything. So, he never stayed. And she would watch him go. Hundreds of times a year, she watched him go to his room, alone. The punctuation mark at the end of the night for thousands of nights was them parting, was Barry leaving. And she was sure that it would be the same story for thousands of nights to come. 

  
  


***

 

“What do you think of the new look, Bear?” 

 

Lup posed as she showed off the tarnished crown on her head. They had found some ruins, fallen stone structures littered with books and jewelry and paintings. Near what looked like what was once probably a throne carved of stone that was part of the structure of the building, Lup found the crown that she immediately popped on top of her head and started modeling for Barry.

 

Barry laughed. “Careful; who knows if it’s cursed or made of poison metal or covered in flesh-eating bugs or some other fun surprise.” 

 

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Lup jumped down from the stone ledge she was balancing on, placing a hand at the side of her head to keep the the crown in place. “What’s a little curse if I get to feel like royalty for a day?” 

 

Barry smiled and looked shyly at the ground as they continued walking around the ruins, trying to piece together a picture of what the civilization that was once there might have looked and behaved like. They found piles of books and partially written papers, dense with poetry and songs and short stories in an ancient, and fairly difficult to decipher, dialect of common. From what they had figured out so far, the people there led a leisurely life centered around art and food and long days of lounging and daydreaming. At least, whoever it was that occupied the long-fallen palaces and mansions led that life. 

 

They heard a clattering noise and looked down. Barry had kicked something while walking and they just barely caught the sight of it sparkling as it slid under a gap in a pile of rocks. Lup hurriedly went after it, crouched down by the rocks, stuck her hand in the space between them and retrieved a crown; a thin, short one accented with olive colored stones.  

 

“Oh sweet, another one!” As Lup moved to set it on her head on top of the other crown, Barry intercepted and gently slipped it out of her hands. She stood there, shocked, her hands hung in mid-air grasped around nothing while he lowered the circlet onto his own head with a satisfied smile. 

 

Barry looked over at Lup from the corner of his eye and his smile widened even further. “What? I don’t get to play pretend, too?” 

 

Lup laughed and clasped her hands together before skipping backwards and hopping on top of a large stone a few feet away. She extended her arms and made a rectangle with her fingers, catching Barry within the frame and looking him over as if through a camera. 

 

“Hmm, yeah I can totally see it,” she dropped her hands and stepped down from the stone. “I think you make a pretty convincing king.” Barry blushed and laughed the quiet laugh that he always did when he was blushing over a compliment. It was cute and she loved it. But, back when she first noticed that he did that, she guessed that it must have been because he wasn’t sure how to accept compliments, and it made her sad. She had resolved since then to make sure to gently compliment him whenever there was the opportunity, but not so much that it seemed insincere or made him uncomfortable. Just… just enough to let him know how amazing he was. 

 

They made their way to what looked to be the courtyard of the long fallen castle that they were exploring. There was a dried up fountain circled by a path made of colorful, round stones and beyond the fountain there was a circle of pillars, all in various states of deterioration. As they stepped into the middle of the pillars, they saw that the ground there was decorated with an elaborate mural across the face of broad flat stepping stones. The mural was separated into two parts; on one side was a scene under the sun with a row of humanoid figures, the faces washed out by time, lined up and holding a chain of flowers. On the other half was a scene under the moon that was -- vaguely upsetting. It was a dark landscape with hills and trees that were pitch black except for semicircles of deep blues wherever the moonlight touched them. And from within the branches and hiding in the tall grass and looking out from small gaps in the leaves of bushes were hundreds of glowing white eyes.  

 

Barry stroked his chin as he looked it over. “That’s uh -- I mean, we’ve been here almost half a year now? And there hasn’t been a moon, or a night.”

 

“Weird.” Lup knelt down to look at the painting closer. “I wonder if something happened that got the sun stuck where it is.” 

 

Barry furrowed his brow in thought. “What could possibly make a star stop moving? I’d be  _ really  _ interested in figuring that out.” 

 

Lup looked up from studying the mural. “Shit, yeah, I mean… that could potentially be super useful info, huh?” 

 

Barry nodded absentmindedly and Lup watched as the wheels turned in his head. She loved being able to read his face, his tone, even his silence. 

 

...

 

Beyond the circle of pillars was a rambling yard packed with flowers, their colors grouped to create a gradient of pink and burnt copper to hazel, and then even more shades of pink, darkening into harsher colors bordering on rust, then snapping back to the faintest blush. Every bloom had blossoming insides and hardened exteriors that made hollow, woody chiming noises in the constant breeze. The air around them was weighed down with the scent of pollen from saccharin sweet flowers and they couldn’t help but take a break there, laying on the ground next to the flowers. 

 

Barry flicked at a flower, causing it to tilt and hit several others, setting them swaying and knocking against each other. And just like that, there was a symphony of little clicks and clacks as a chain of flowers of different sizes knocked up against each other. Barry looked delighted at the result. He stared at the musical domino effect with wide eyes and a smile and then excitedly turned to look at Lup, his expression saying ‘are you seeing this?’. 

 

Gods, he was so fucking cute sometimes. All the time. She wanted to tell him that, wanted to be able to pull it off like a friendly comment. She just wanted him to know. She was sure that the last thing he would ever think was that she found him cute. That just wasn’t the way he seemed to think about himself. His confidence was in other areas. 

 

But she kept looking at him, even after his surprised look started to calm, and he kept looking back at her, wondering what her far off gaze meant, unable to move away from the pull of her half-lidded eyes. She exhaled, a small sort of laugh escaping her as her shoulders dropped and her ears went limp and her eyebrows knitted together in a look of admiration. And her thoughts were so strong that they slipped out of her mouth. 

 

“You’re really cute.” 

 

She saw Barry’s eyes widen and she sucked in air, as if trying to recollect the words that she had just let out. It was just it was just it was just-

 

“What you just did. Being all excited. Adorable.” It was a disjointed and hurried attempt at saving herself, but it seemed like it worked. He silently nodded and smiled and turned his attention back to the flowers.

 

…

 

After some more prodding around the dilapidated royal grounds, they came across yet another pile of mostly destroyed books. But, there was one that was different, one that was bound in gold plating and red cloth and with a good number of intact pages. Barry picked it up and thumbed through it before holding it out to Lup. 

 

“You’re a lot better at this language stuff than I am.”

 

Lup pushed the book back towards him. “We can put our noggins together and figure it out. C’mon, let’s sit over here.” 

 

They walked over to the stone bench that Lup pointed out and Barry laid the book across his lap, leafing through the pages to find whichever was the first one that was undamaged enough to fully read. Lup sidled up close to him in order to get a good look at the writing, leaning lightly against him, relaxing with her head set on his shoulder, running her eyes along the words. She thought she felt him stiffen and, not wanting to overreact but also not wanting to make things awkward, she slowly straightened, stopped leaning against him and instead leaned forward, pretending that she needed to be closer to the book.

 

Most of the pages were completely ruined with words missing from water damage or pages that crumbled as soon as they were touched. But there was a good chunk in the center that had been protected by the outer pages and were fairly legible. They worked their way through the ancient, flowery prose and assembled the bare bones of the story that it seemed to be telling, a story titled Twa Dryhtnes. 

  
  


“And it was when they watched the sunset together that day that she knew she was in love. And she hoped the princess from the right side of the world was, too. The princess from the other side of the world continued to write letters to the princess on the right side of the world, but each one was interrupted and stolen away by the royal servants. Thinking that she was being forsaken by her love, the princess on the other side of the world grew distraught. But, she never stopped writing, even as the years went by. The princess on the right side of the world was married off to the prince of a neighboring kingdom, and it brought their land peace at the cost of the princess’s happiness. The princess on the other side of the world in her profound sadness refused all of her responsibilities and, when her parents were readying to marry her off, she ran away to the woods where she continued to write letters and stories and poems about her love. 

“One day, she was approached by a being, glowing bright and covered in eyes. “I know how you can get the princess’s love,” it told her. She said that she would do anything. So, the figure stayed with her for the following ten years and taught her how to harness magic from deep within the ground, drawn from the core of the world. At the end of the ten years, it told her that she was ready and that they were going to climb the mountain at the edge of the forest. The tremendous power that she had learned let her manipulate the molten gravity within the planet, and she was able to weave a spell that anchored the sun and stopped it from traveling through the sky any longer. She stopped it forever at a particular position in the sky, at the same moment so many years before when she had realized that she loved the princess. But, being from the other side of the world and a part of the people of the moon, her actions had a great cost. It was then that she realized she had been tricked by the creature, and the princess watched as her skin turned translucent and filled with bright liquid fire. Lines like scars formed all over her and then peeled themselves open and began to blink as eyeballs grew within the hollows that formed there. Now, the world would have to live at the moment where she had fallen in love as she retreated into the core of the world to live out her life of sorrow, never seeing the sun again.” 

“Seeing the sun hung in the sky at the moment that she still remembered from long ago, the princess from the right side of the world finally knew the truth; that the princess from the other side of the world loved her and had never forgotten her. She knew then that she had been lied to for her entire life by people who were supposed to care for her and who had said that they had her happiness in mind. She stole away into the woods one night, and resolved that she would walk and wander for however long she had to in order to find the princess. After years of wandering, she came upon a creature in the woods, glowing bright and covered in eyes. It told her that it knew where the princess was, but that she had retreated to the core of the world. The princess said that she wanted to follow. “What will you do if she doesn’t look the same anymore?” the creature asked her. “I will love her just as I always have,” the princess replied. “What will you do if she doesn’t act the same anymore?” the creature asked her. “I will continue to love her just as I always have,” the princess replied. “What will you do if--”

 

The rest of the pages of the book were too badly damaged to make anything out. They took the book back with them to give to Lucretia for recording. 

 

***

 

Lup and Barry became deeply invested in the history of their world that year and spent large amounts of time trying to piece together what was fact and what was fiction. The paintings and stories were proof enough that the sun wasn’t always stuck, and that there used to be a moon and a night there; but how that actually happened was still up for debate. They found a few more texts that had different stories of how it happened, but everything seemed so fantastical and dramatized that they couldn’t extract the truth. The one and only thing that was consistent across all of the stories and sonnets and poems and pictures were the creatures with eyes. It became an ominous motif that caused increasing worry for them. 

 

They had very little time left in the year, but they remained hopeful that they might find a satisfactory answer to the mystery of the suspended sun. Even more than that, they hoped that it might lead them to an obtainable power or a discovery that could aid them in their desperate search for a way to stop the Hunger. With only a week left, on their umpteenth expedition out into the world while sifting through the ruins, Lup and Barry found something different. 

 

“Hey Bear, I think this is a map.” Lup unfurled a large scroll that had been well preserved inside a closed tube of lacquered wood. 

 

Barry dropped the waterlogged tome he was holding and hurried over to Lup. 

 

“Oh shit…” Barry huddled close to Lup to inspect the map with her and to try and make out any sort of indication of where it was supposed to start and end. Lup gasped.

 

“That, right there!” She circled a spot with her finger and Barry squinted his eyes to study the blob of ink that indicated some sort of landmark. Once he was able to focus enough to see the tiny details of the edges and the black shapes in front of it that depicted some uniquely shaped stones, he recognized the cave that they had passed by earlier. Figuring out that spot set the rest of the map in context and they started to recognize different identifying features all over. 

 

“Oh man, I guess that was what this was supposed to look like.” Lup looked up and scanned the fallen stones around them; the tiny illustration on the map showed a large structure surrounded by a wall that housed a forest bordered by rows of alternating spires and and turrets. All of that work, just for it to return to its original state as piles of stones on the ground. 

 

***

 

The cave was a significant point on the map, and it was somewhere that they hadn’t searched yet, so that was where they went next. And that was where their travels across that world ended. They were barely halfway through the main chamber of the cave, the light of the sun still able to pour through, showing them what looked like a safe path. That was when the ground gave out from underneath them.

 

After the cave-in, they couldn’t see the light anymore. They were unsure how far they had fallen and everything around them was so dense with darkness that it was even giving Lup some problems with seeing clearly. Barry was unable to see anything as he desperately felt his way around while calling Lup’s name.

 

“I’m right here, Barry.” Lup reached out and grabbed his hand. Looking at him, she could see how completely lost his expression was as he tried to make out the contour of her face, mere inches from his eyes. She looked him over, trying to see if he was injured. 

 

“Are you okay Lup?” He held on to her hand tight and her heart hiccuped. 

 

“I’m pretty sure I’m good. How about you?”

 

Barry exhaled, sounding relieved. “Yeah, I think I’m good, just some scrapes. Probably gonna be sore later, I’m sure.” 

 

Lup forced out a laugh. “Well, at least there’s only a week left. There won’t be a whole lot of time to miss us, and I think we might actually have enough food in our packs to last, if we’re careful.”

 

Barry inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly and Lup could hear the tremors in his breath from the panic trying to take hold of him. “So. What do we even do while we wait?” 

 

“Oof, I don’t know.” Lup narrowed her eyes and looked around. She started to walk the perimeter of the chamber that they were in, leading Barry by the hand. They were completely closed in with no sign of an opening or even rocks that might be moved to create one. “Well. You know any games we can play in pitch dark? Ooh, I think not being able to see might add a fun twist to thumb wrestling.”

 

Barry laughed through the panic. “Yeah, uh -- we can just thumb wrestle for hours on end and definitely not lose our marbles at the end of day one.” 

 

“Hey, I don’t hear any suggestions from you, Barold.” She teased him, just wanting to keep some sort of dialogue going. Panicking was the worst thing that they could do in their situation. They were much too far out of range for their stones to work; they had been emboldened by having spent almost the entire year safely venturing across the world and kept going further and further out. But, they had food and neither of them were grievously injured. There was nothing to be done except wait things out, and she didn’t want to spend that time feeding into each others’ meltdowns.  

 

But, they didn’t have to worry about it for long. They fell asleep sitting up against the wall of the cave, leaning against each other, each using the other as somewhere soft to lay their head. A couple hours later when they woke up after their short and fitful rest, cold and sore everywhere, they saw something in the oppressive darkness. Hundreds of eyes blinked rapidly and then opened wide all around them. There were patches of deep red, muted light that grew brighter as the eyes came closer. And then they were back on board the Starblaster. 


	34. Eyes on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Thirty Four

  
  


_ Keep your eyes on me. _

  
  


“No worries, I got this! Don’t take your eyes off me, Barry, this is gonna be sick!” 

 

Lup let herself drop backwards out of the hatch and then extended her arms to either side as she fell, barrelling through the sky in the shape of a cross, looking straight up at Barry. He was bent over the open hatch, nervously watching her confident stunt. Her braid shook violently in the wind and she dipped her head back, far enough to start tilting entirely backwards until she was diving head first towards the mountain peak, falling into the illuminated sphere bursting out from the Light of Creation. She was nearing the end of the cable and Barry couldn’t stop playing out the worst case scenario in his head. He could envision her reaching the end, and watching the cable break from the force of the sudden stop, and then seeing her be thrown at the jagged peak of the mountain at high speed... or, what if she reached the end of the cable and was whipped back upwards, definitely getting a neck or spine injury,  _ if  _ she survived. He could see it and hear it happening, the visual was so strong. It was making him sick, he didn’t want to watch that happen to her… but she told him not to look away.

 

_ Don’t you take your eyes off of her, Barry.  _

 

As she neared the imminent end of her fall, she pushed her arms out in front of her, against the force of the wind as she rocketed towards the ground in a nose dive, and she let two pillars of fire loose from her hands. As they connected with the ground on either side of the light, the force of the heavy resistance of her magic slowed her descent. She gently lowered herself by shortening the brilliant pillars from her palms, and then finally extinguished them as she made contact with the flat bit of ledge near the light. Her toes touched softly onto the solid rock, and then she rolled down onto the balls of her feet until she was planted firmly on the ground. With her arms out at her sides, her hands in a graceful pose, she turned and looked straight up. Seeing Barry’s face peering out of the hatch at her, she smiled at him, and then dramatically took a bow. 

 

Done showing off, Lup grabbed the cloth strapped to her shoulder and wrapped the light up in it. Barry and Magnus pulled her up, the light in tow, and just like that she was back in the ship, safe and intact, only minutes after falling at full speed face first towards the ground. 

 

“That was so cool!” Magnus was practically vibrating as he threw up his right hand and waited for a high five from Lup. She dropped the balled up cloth with the light in it, made sure their elbows were lined up, and delivered a palm-stinging smack onto Magnus’s hand. He pumped his fist in excitement and then ran off to the cockpit to update Davenport. 

 

Barry stood up from fastening the hatch closed and exhaled heavily, only just then realizing that he had been holding his breath the entire time. He let his tense shoulders drop, and as Lup started to free herself from the harness, she noticed the worry lingering in his distant expression. 

 

“Aw, Barry.” With the harness undone, she let it slip off of her shoulders to the ground. “Sorry if I scared ya. I was just having some fun.”

 

“Oh, no I know, don’t worry about me.” Barry felt as though he just suddenly woke up, he had been in such a daze. “It was just a, uh, that was- it was just watching it from that angle or something, it looked like there was no way you weren’t going to hit the ground. I mean, shit, I know that you know what you’re doing, it was just -- I guess maybe I’m just nauseous, motion sick- I know you can do  _ anything, _ I don’t want you to think that I-”

 

Lup took a step forward, closing the gap between them, and planted a finger on his lips. 

 

“I know what you felt. But, I’m good, right? And!” She took a step back and grabbed the wadded up blanket that contained the light off of the floor and held it out in front of her, presenting it triumphantly. “We got it! And that means you and I...” she carelessly tossed the light back on to the ground and stepped close to Barry again, hooking her finger over the collar of his shirt. She was overflowing with adrenaline from flying through the air full speed, watching the ground come so close to her face, defying gravity with her raw power. She was reeling with something -- something stronger than confidence, something that made her feel invincible. Barry’s eyes widened as he felt Lup’s finger touch his skin from where it looped over and then under his shirt at the neck. She teasingly tugged and pulled him even closer to her by the collar of his shirt. “It means you and I have a whole lot of work to do, now.” 

 

***

 

It hadn’t  taken them long to find the light; it perched itself at the very top of a mountain not far off just a couple of days after they had arrived. From its spot on the peak, it illuminated the sky with its otherworldly glow, looking like the rescuing beam of a lighthouse, guiding their ship straight to it in the foggy night.

 

They traveled for a little over an hour, making steady progress towards their target, when they saw what looked like a settlement laid out below them. Davenport landed the ship, thinking it best to check in with locals and see if there might have been anything they needed to know before continuing to recover the light. They also didn’t want to pass up the chance to learn more about the world and its inhabitants before grabbing the light and diving into work. 

 

Davenport, Magnus, and Lucretia left the ship to make contact with the modest village. The homes were more like mounds than they were structures; piles of packed dirt with uneven holes for entryways. The crude hovels were spaced far apart and surrounded by multiple circles of stones radiating outward from each one, some only a few feet, others extending as far as ten to twenty feet. Stranger than that were the series of wood planks and beams jutting from out of the ground, even though no trees had been seen by the crew for the entire time they had spent on the planet so far. Every piece of wood in all of their various shapes and placements had simple, blocky carvings covering every inch, and they seemed to be arranged in a repeating pattern; a beam standing straight up followed by a plank lying flat on the ground followed by a short bit of a rounded beam stuck into the ground at an angle, leaning to the side as if it were being pushed over by a strong wind. The pattern repeated in a line at least a mile long that pointed straight towards the mountain. 

 

Standing at the outer edge, they were soon spotted by the inhabitants of the dirt settlement. They were difficult to look at -- or more it was that their forms were hard to make sense of. It was like their lower half was invisible, but not see through… space and color was somehow subtracted around the area where one would expect their legs to be, and there was only absence wherever they stepped. Their heads turned like the key to a wind-up toy, clicking and unnatural, moving side to side from a single fixed point. They were only a couple of feet tall and wore brown hooded robes. And their faces; they were broad and flat with short, dark hair that ran in a thin strip all around the outer edges of their circular heads. And the only features on their faces were various dots and lines of bright blue static that seemed to float about half of an inch off of the surface of their stone-like skin. The most humanoid part about them was their hands, and they were almost  _ too _ familiarly human; it was unsettling. They did something that looked like gesturing, pointing both of their index fingers inwards at each other and tapping off of the edges, dragging their fingers across their faces, phasing through the static markings. They would pause after a series of gestures and wait silently, maybe for the crew to respond, then they would perform the gestures over again from the beginning. Davenport and Magnus looked at each other and then back to the villagers, shaking their heads and shrugging, but knowing that those signifiers of not understanding probably meant nothing to them. Lucretia furiously wrote everything down and tried to capture all of their hand symbols and motions in illustrations. They stayed and tried to communicate for a little while, feeling safe with the villagers even though they couldn’t understand them, but the gulf between them was too large to cross. When they eventually left, a group of the robed beings timidly followed after them, almost seeming like they wanted them to stay. But they weren’t sure if they were just interpreting their actions through their own lens of understanding. They didn’t know what else to do, at least for the time being, so they left. Maybe they could try some more after retrieving the light.

 

...

 

There was a sort of green fog around the base of the light that Davenport noticed as he maneuvered the ship closer to the mountain peak. He didn’t think much of it though; he figured it was some reflection or just general weirdness, as usual. And whatever it was, it was barely noticeable. It wasn’t in his direct line of view once he was hovering over it, so he didn’t get a good look at it for very long. It didn’t feel like enough of a concern for him to delay the retrieval, but he should have taken notice and he should have been more careful; he was their captain. Ultimately, everything that happened after that he knew was his fault. 

 

***

 

They weren’t able to make any headway with the population there and they weren’t able to understand their symbols, but they saw the light and they got the light, and Lup looked damn cool doing it, too. Barry was so scared watching her, but he was excited after. She had done something  _ so amazing _ and it was more obvious than ever how much her power was increasing, along with her confidence in how far she could safely push her body when wielding such incredible magical force. He felt so lucky to have seen something that amazing, no matter how much it frightened him. And, he felt lucky to be so close to someone that could blow his mind like that. He couldn’t wait to get into the lab and to get down to work with her. 

 

They put the light in a box and set it in the lab for later. They were all going to have a celebratory dinner and some down time together before getting rest and starting the next day fresh. 

It was just a couple of hours after dinner that Lup first mentioned feeling nauseous. And it didn’t go away. An hour after that, it was even worse, and her vision was blurred. Everyone gathered around her and watched helplessly as she rapidly became more and more sick. Lucretia brought her a healing tonic; she was barely able to drink it through the queasiness, and it didn’t seem to help. Lup got up from the common room couch and took a couple of steps before falling to her knees and throwing up on the floor. Taako rushed to put an arm around her and lift her to her feet. She gripped his arm, tried to swallow the nausea, tried to get the room to stop tilting around her, tried to not let her knees buckle, tried to keep her eyes open and her mind moving... but she was only able to hold on to a few more seconds of lucidity before everything went black. 

 

***

 

“Please look at me.”

 

Barry had turned away and was staring at the empty chair in the corner of the room. Taako was pacing on the other side of the bedroom, running his fingernails back and forth across the inside of his thumb like he always did when he was nervous. Barry did as she asked and looked back at her as soon as she finished the sentence. He didn’t want her to see his eyes; she didn’t need to feel bad about him being a sad sack on top of her pain. 

 

_ Don’t you take your eyes off of her, Barry.  _

 

It was hard. It was too fucking hard. It hurt so much seeing her face, the pain in her eyes, the blood that occasionally sputtered out as she coughed. How weak and croaking her voice was, her raspy breath. He dabbed at the corners of her mouth again, wiping the blood away. She couldn’t even hold on to a napkin, her grip had become so weak and her hands shook any time she tried to move them. Her eyes fluttered shut and she lost consciousness, again.

 

Taako continued to pace back and forth while Barry sat on the mattress next to Lup, never moving his eyes away from her, even though she wasn’t awake to see him. 

 

Taako suddenly stood still. “She can barely even speak, I don’t know --”

 

“I mean. It  _ is  _ what she said though, Taako.”

 

“I know,  _ Barry. _ But it’s pretty fucked up, right? You really want to do that? You don’t think that there’s maybe  _ any  _ other answer?” 

 

“Of course I don’t want to do that.” Barry kept his voice soft and tried to bring the tension down, even though he was finding himself frustrated. How could Taako think he would want to see that happen, want it to happen at all? Of course not  _ of course not.  _

 

“Well then? Do something, yeah? Merle ditched out on us, but I doubt this would be the kind of thing that he could do jack shit about anyways. You, though… isn’t this your whole point? Doesn’t stuff like this fall under  _ exactly what you’re here for?”  _

 

Lup groaned in pain and Taako winced, holding back tears. 

 

Barry panicked at the confrontation that was unfolding and he floundered trying to get out a response. “Taako… I don’t- fuck. This looks like -- just because it looks like radiation sickness doesn’t mean that I have the answer for it. It’s still a medical issue first and foremost. And it’s got to be pretty bad for it to set in this fast. I can’t- Taako, she would need at the very  _ least  _ a blood transfusion, but at this rate of degradation, I don’t think that would do much-”

“Either fix her, or go talk to those little freaky -- whatever they are. That’s why you always take my sister away for weeks at a time, isn’t it? To learn about these places and communicate with whatever bullshit people there are? Why don’t you put all that to use and find some way to help her,  _ Barry.  _ Unless all that work is just an excuse to try and worm your way into hooking up with my sister.”

 

An icy pain pierced Barry’s heart when he heard those words come from Taako. He found himself all at once dismayed, ashamed, betrayed, and frustrated; more frustrated than he had been in a long time. And how could he just… say it like  _ that? _ How could he be so callous in diminishing his feelings for Lup like that? He felt gutted by the suggestion.  

 

And then Barry made a mistake. Just as Taako sucked in his breath, sounding like he was preparing to take another venomous jab at Barry, Barry said a single word, heavy with all of the frustration and sadness and betrayal that he felt in that moment. 

  
“Enough!” 

 

The word originated from a deep place in his chest and came out with a sharp growl. It surprised him as soon as the word became audible after it rumbled through his throat.

 

Taako’s eyes shot wide open and Barry could read his face; the shock, the gathering of his scattered thoughts, probably collecting himself and preparing to completely destroy Barry with some final comment. Or worse; he might be silent. He might say nothing, make Barry leave the room, not talk to him for the rest of the cycle, tell Lup about it the next year, not speak to him for who knows how long. And of course Lup would be on Taako’s side and defend him, no matter what. He just yelled at  _ her brother. _ His close friend, his family,  _ what the fuck was he thinking? _

 

But no, actually... Taako was digging into him ruthlessly; what the fuck was  _ he  _ thinking? Why should Barry just take it? He was family, too. What was so wrong about him that he deserved to receive that treatment, but feared being shunned for giving it back? And Taako had taken something that he had told him in confidence, in a moment of bonding between the two of them, and used it against him. That was fucked. 

 

Taako’s lips were pressed thin against each other, his eyes flashing. He held his breath as his gaze pierced through Barry, and Barry stared back at him as he stayed dead still where he was, sitting on the mattress, his hand clasped around Lup’s limp fingers. Barry could see the muscles working in Taako’s jaw and knew that he was gritting his teeth. After a moment that felt like forever, Taako let out a long breath through his nose and seemed to deflate. His eyebrows were still angry, his lips still drawn in a line, but he relaxed his jaw and as he took in another breath and exhaled, his chest sank and his tensed features fell. Keeping the angry expression, just not as hostile anymore, he was the first to break the staring contest with Barry and he turned his head to look away, towards the corner of the room at nothing. 

 

“All right.” Taako slowly inhaled and exhaled again, breathing out the anger like poison. “Do whatever the fuck you think is best, I guess.” 

 

Taako turned to leave the room, Barry sighed and softened; he didn’t want him to leave.

 

“Taako, you know that I don’t want that, that I can’t, I... I won’t be able to do anything about it, I was just trying to say that what she said was-”

 

Taako paused at the door, his hand on the knob. “Yeah. I heard her. So. Fucking, whatever.”

 

And he left. 

 

Barry’s heart sank. Everything was wrong. He held Lup’s hand tighter as he looked back down at her. She was in so much pain; she was sleeping, or just not lucid, but her face was still tight and her brows furrowed with agony as her breath drew in and out in quick little stutters, every slight movement hurting her. 

 

He couldn’t do anything about it without Taako’s help, but Taako couldn’t look at her and keep his composure. But it was what she had asked for, what she felt made the most sense, what  _ she  _ wanted based off of how  _ her  _ body felt. Every moment was just more pain. It would be wrong not to do what she asked. No one else should have been making any decisions for her and her body when she was too weak to do anything for herself. And she had spent some of the last bit of her energy and lucidity to ask for one thing. 

 

He had to figure out a way to kill her. 

 

***

 

Taako understood Barry’s silent nod and appreciated the fact that he was making room for him to be alone with Lup without having to ask or kick him out. And, he was glad that Barry came to retrieve him from the common room without starting a conversation about what Lup had asked for, or trying to patch up whatever it was that just happened between them. It wasn’t the time for that, it wasn’t the time for anything, just…

 

Taako kneeled on the floor and leaned over the edge of the bed, his face buried in the mattress, arm flopped over so that his hand could hold Lup’s. But he couldn’t look at her. She looked wrong. And the sound; it was like every muscle, every vein, every drop of blood was painful and rasping and dryly scraping against everything else in her.

 

He used to have nightmares about losing her. He knew everything would be over if he ever did. He was an individual, a strong one. He had his own talents and thoughts and desires; but the things he had never had much of in his life as an individual was safety, trust, comfort. She was all of that, and had been the only source of it for so long. And, maybe even more importantly, she was someone that he was able to give all of those things back to. Every time that he felt damaged, or felt that he was lacking in some way or incapable of giving affection or of being able to feel certain things -- all of that was disproven by her very existence. He sometimes felt that Lup was the only proof there was that he was capable of love. He cared for and was cared for by the family he had found himself with, but the ability to find the strength within him to give and receive that care in the first place would not have been possible without Lup. Otherwise, he would have been too scared. Scared of rejection, scared of being taken advantage of, used for someone else’s benefit, hurt, stepped on, abandoned. The only way that those fears and insecurities didn’t run his whole life was because Lup was always there, would always be there. No matter what happened to him with other people, with any chances he took, risky endeavors, relationships, there was no way he would ever fall flat on his face, no way he would ever be abandoned, because at the end of every day, Lup would be there. 

 

He knew that, even in the extreme circumstance they found themselves in, she would still always be there. Or, that if she wasn’t there for a bit, she would always be back. Maybe it wasn’t at the end of each day anymore, but it was always, no matter what, at least by the end of each year. Lup was still a permanent fixture in his life, as it should be, as it  _ had  _ to be for him to keep going. But, it didn’t make those losses feel any less painful, and it didn’t keep him from being reminded of the nightmares he had, the nightmares that made him feel like the smallest lost child. The nightmares that devastated him, that made it feel like a miracle that his organs hadn’t slowed to a stop, that everything around him hadn’t ceased to exist, hadn’t turned to dust. Because that’s all there was without her. Everything would be dust, and so would he. 

 

But that was all about him, that was about  _ his  _ pain. She was right there next to him in pure agony, and all he could think about was how much it hurt him to see it, to have to watch her. He was being monstrous and he knew it. She was in pain and it could be fixed, and it would only feel like a second to her. And he would be fine too, except for some nightmares for the rest of the year. But he didn’t know if he could do -- no actually; he knew. He knew he couldn’t do it by himself. He needed help. 

 

_ *** _

 

_ Don’t take your eyes off of me, Barry.  _

 

He felt like a coward. All he could think of were ways to do it that would be easiest for  _ him.  _ He needed to be thinking about her. About her comfort, about it being quick, accurate, no room for a mistake, as little pain as possible. Respectful, and maybe even something that she would have fun hearing about when she was back. Something Lup-like. There were probably so many ways to do it that he couldn’t think of because all he could do was panic and panic and think about how every moment that he wasn’t doing something, that was another moment of pain for her. He could hear her wheezing next to him, pulling in jagged breaths, trying not to breathe but having to, but so painful, too painful, that the breaths came out choppy. 

 

They only had healing potions, they had nothing in the way of painkillers or sleeping pills. He wasn’t sure if he would have what would be needed to synthesize something like that, but gods that felt sinister as all fuck  _ stop thinking about yourself.  _

Maybe he’d have an easier time thinking about what to do if he wasn’t sitting next to her, feeling her hand go limp and then tense every time a surge of pain hit her, hearing her breathe in and out with a hollow death rattle 

 

Barry looked at his palm on the hand that wasn’t holding hers, suddenly aware of some pain. He saw a row of little crescent indentations where he had been digging into his hand as he subconsciously flexed, balling them into fists on and off. 

 

“We just have to do it, already.” Taako weakly put a hand on Barry’s shoulder from where he sat next to him, kneeling over the edge of the bed once again, face first in the mattress. “Let’s make it something cool. For her.”  

 

*******

 

“That’s really what she asked for?” Davenport sounded unusually soft and sad. 

 

“Fuck, damn, I guess… I wouldn’t want to be… feeling like that, either.”  Magnus’s voice trailed off. They all were crowded around the door to Taako and Lup’s bedroom. Her labored breathing could be heard from halfway down the hall, but at the opening of the doorway, the sound was sickeningly unbearable. 

 

Lucretia gripped the door frame as she nervously looked into the room. “What are you going to do?” 

 

They looked at Barry and Taako. It wasn’t something that had ever really been said out loud, but there was an obvious understanding communicated through their tense silence that they all felt that Taako, obviously first and foremost, followed closely by Barry, had a certain place with Lup and an understanding of what she wanted more than anyone else. Taako cleared his throat, the lump forming there causing him to sort of hiccup as he did. 

 

“We’re gonna do what she asked.” 

 

***

 

They were both silent. But they understood each other. And they had agreed. And they didn’t want to do it. They couldn’t stomach it. But they wouldn’t dare, either of them, not do what Lup wanted, what Lup needed. 

 

They walked together, their arms overlapping as they held onto her, circling her ribcage, and they gently took her down the corridor that headed to the cockpit and veered off down to the control room, where just beyond that was the narrow, sunken area with the hatch. 

 

Davenport kept the ship hovering. It was pitch dark, the middle of night, because it couldn’t wait, and also… because they didn’t want to see any more than they had to. Because it had to be a lot, it had to be sure, there had to be layers of completing the task so that there was no way…

 

They kneeled at the hatch. Barry and Taako were silent as Lup sunk to her knees as they lowered her with them, limp and breathing like wet gravel. With their free hands, Taako turned the knob while barry lifted the latch and they got the door open .

 

The cold night atmosphere stirred frantically underneath them, air gushing in and filling the room. They looked at each other, and they each squeezed her hand on opposite sides. And they cringed almost in unison as they let her drop.

 

They heard the suck of air as she was taken, ripped out of the hatch as soon as they loosened their hold on her, and she fell, and they could hear the heavy sound of air being displaced as she was pulled through it. 

 

“Taako, now-”

 

“I know, I know…” Taako’s voice was thick as he grabbed Barry’s hand. They each held so tight that their knuckles were white as they applied a pressure to each other that was to balance them, to keep them each from falling like a heap of nothing to the floor, to keep them from losing their nerve, to keep them from falling to pieces over the terrible thing they were doing. Their other hands were raised, armed with wands, and they both pointed down and out of the hatch into the night, angled towards the same target 

 

They could barely see anything as they pointed and for a moment they were both terrified that they were just going to let her fall, exactly what they didn’t want to do, because what if she hit the ground and didn’t die, or if hitting the ground was too painful and not fast enough.

So they let loose a power together that shot down like a beam as strong as the Light of Creation and ripped a space into the air that was filled with a crackling column of matter-obliterating holy white light. And from where they were, looking down onto the column of white hot power, they saw within the beam a small blip of black, the ashy silhouette of Lup’s falling body as she was incinerated the moment that the light touched her. And then the stream of light staggered down like the remainder of a waterfall collapsing to the ground after being cut off from the source. And they watched the light fall and pool on the ground as the ship continued on, flying through the air that swept up into the room, beating across Barry and Taako’s face. They let go of each other's hands as their bodies shook, as all of their joints became weak and their eyes lost focus. That was Lup, that was Lup’s body, that was Lup. 

 

Barry felt sick. He felt like the hand that had just done  _ that  _ was wrong, was not actually part of him. It was trembling, he felt like his body was rejecting it. 

 

But, he had done what she wanted him to do. 

 

And he didn’t take his eyes off of her the entire time. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	35. Brains and Brawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Thirty Five

  
  
  


“I’m so sorry.” 

Lup let her head fall limply onto Taako’s shoulder while he absent-mindedly poked fingers through random spots in her braid with his arms around her. 

 

“It isn’t your fault. Sucks that it took us a minute and that we weren’t able to do it right away. We…” Taako tripped over his words as he recalled the painful beginning to the year before. “We let you suffer.”

 

“No, it’s fine. I understand that it was a tough thing to ask for. Besides,” Lup grinned, “you ended up doing something pretty badass sounding.”

 

“Yeah, I guess. In the moment, though, it was -- I just -- I guess I’m kinda glad I didn’t have to do it alone.” 

 

Lup gathered her brother up in a hug. “Yeah. I’m glad, too.” 

 

After a while of much needed bonding, Lup took the conversation a different direction, hoping to get Taako back on track to being in good spirits. 

 

“So, what did you do the whole year? I hope you didn’t just mope.” 

 

“Pfft, I worked out a bunch. Was a good distraction.” Taako backed away from Lup a little so that he could flex an arm. “Feels good, got muscles for days now.”

 

Lup scrunched up her face. “It’s… it’s day one, we  _ just  _ regenerated, you know you’re exactly the same, right?”

 

“--is what you would have said had I not worked hard at getting totally ripped all year.” Taako hopped off of the bed and stretched. 

“I think I’m good to make dinner now. I’m guessing you’ll probably want to talk to our Barold, so I’ll leave you to it.” 

 

“Yeah, yeah. You do that, but you know I’m not letting it go. You can’t just delude yourself into thi-”

 

“Muscles for days, Lu!” Taako yelled over his shoulder as he walked towards and out the door. “Muscles for  _ days.” _

 

***

 

The prior year had been miserable with Lup being gone for most of it. Barry knew she was going to be spending a long while alone with Taako, but gods he wanted to see her so bad. The couple short moments that he saw her before her and Taako ran off was like drinking water for the first time in a year. But he needed more, he was desperate to look over her features, to see that she was okay, to see her face looking normal and not contorted into a mask of agony. He felt like he needed to spend hours confirming that she was uninjured, to hear her breathe normally.

 

He was so deep in his thoughts that when there was a knock at his door, he jumped in his chair. His heart quickened, hoping it was Lup, but he braced himself in case it wasn’t, biting the inside of his lip so that he wouldn’t crumble into a mess of disappointed tears if it wasn’t her. 

He opened the door to a concerned Lup and he was relieved, but he hoped against hope that she couldn’t tell how emotional he was. 

 

“Hey. So, Taako filled me in.” Lup moved forward and Barry stepped aside so that she could come into his room. She shut the door behind her and drew close to him, her eyes apologetic and sad. 

“I’m  _ so  _ sorry.”

 

“Oh. Uh, n-no it’s- it’s okay, it’s not something to apologize for. I’m sorry you were in so much pain-” Barry tried to work his words around he tightness in his throat, but he couldn’t keep his voice from faltering. 

 

Lup’s eyes filled with worry. She knit her eyebrows together and bit at her lip; she didn’t know how to respond to the pained expression she saw on Barry’s face. She searched for words and came up empty. She just needed him to feel better as fast as possible because she wanted to spend time with him, to be happy with him, for him to not feel bad about  _ anything,  _ because he shouldn’t, not ever. But Taako had told her how traumatic it was. He didn’t want to make her feel bad, so he didn’t come right out and say how much they were hurting all year long, but she knew how to read between the lines when her brother told her anything. 

 

She felt like she was short circuiting after racing through her head, looking frantically for words. And then she saw the tears that Barry was trying so hard to hold back. The look of relief mixed with gut-wrenching pain spread like a shadow across his face, and she couldn’t handle seeing him like that. She practically fell forward and circled her arms around him. He put his arms back around her without hesitation and held her close. The dam burst and he found himself weeping into her hair, sobs shaking his body. He moved an arm up and set his hand on the back of her head, cradling her, drawing her even closer, pressing the side of his face into her hair as his fingers curled in all around her, anchoring her, unable to bear the repetitious memory of her falling away from him. He held her tight, the way that he wished he would have held her when she was sick, the way he wished he could have held her instead of watching her plummet towards the ground. He kept his arms wrapped firmly around her, her body, solid, alive, not turned to ash, and he felt its realness against him. 

He was tortured by how long he hadn’t been able to see her or hug her -- not that he ever really had the nerve to do the latter. But he had the nerve then. He thought about holding her nonstop for an entire year. He didn’t want to let his anxieties and unfounded fears of screwing up hold him back so much from the person who had shown him again and again and again how much she trusted him, how comfortable she was with him. He needed to accept that already, and to stop putting her in the position of having to constantly reassure him. Over the course of that terrible year, he had resolved to stop treating their friendship like glass. He would probably never stop being nervous around her, but he was going to push himself to take more chances, to start treating her as if she could be gone the next day. 

 

Lup felt waves of guilt before settling and melting into the feeling of Barry holding on to her, paying careful attention to how good it felt to be held tightly by him, how safe she felt sinking into his chest, and how she was so light on her feet, barely touching the ground as she was almost suspended by the desperate hold he had on her. But gods, she could feel his body trying so hard not to shake and could hear the dull heaving in his chest as he tried to hold the tears in and keep any sound from escaping. 

Suddenly aware of himself, he gently let her go and wiped at his eyes and laughed a little. 

 

“Sorry. I’m being a bit much. It’s -- it’s all okay, really. I mean, you’re here now.” 

 

“Yeah.” Lup raised a hand to Barry’s face and wiped away a stray tear. 

“I’m here.”  

 

***

 

Merle, Lucretia, and Davenport perused the rustic town that they had parked the ship by. Merle decided that he would wait a while before going into parley again. Magnus had seemed a little disappointed in how Merle was handling it and what kind of information he was getting. He tried coaching Merle on what to ask, what not to give away, how to act, how to talk. Merle listened, but he was sure that he knew what he was doing. He was the only one who had talked to John after all, and he felt like a connection might be forming, and he felt that that was more important than going at it from a calculated, humorless sort of way. John wasn’t going to tell him anything if he went in there stone-faced, obviously trying to get tactical information and nothing else. It wasn’t going to do any good. So, he would listen to suggestions but… he knew what he was actually going to be doing. 

 

They had set out intending to spend the day searching for jobs in the city. The ship was running low on some vital supplies, as well as a few of their favorite creature comforts, the simple things that helped to keep them going through the tough times. The city was well-stocked with all manner of goods sold in multitudes of street cars lined up in alleyways, their display boxes and shelves overflowing with food and bright trinkets and necessities. They started the task of making connections with the locals and gathering information, piecing together the inner workings of the society and trying to see where they might fit in job-wise. They noticed people at the carts grabbing up piles of brightly colored, patterned blankets, or filling wooden buckets with food, and they were all handing what looked like regular pieces of paper torn from a notebook to the cart owners. They soon discovered that the city didn’t run on any kind of currency that they were used to; it ran on the exchange of stories, both real and fabricated, in prose or in song or in illustrations. Shop runners were gleefully accepting small pamphlets or scrolls from patrons, giving them a quick scan, and then allowing their goods to be taken freely in what looked like undefined amounts. Businesses seemed to be run on trust and on a constantly happy wave of conversation following the exchange of tales that obviously brought the people great joy. It was good news for the crew; they probably had enough stories to buy everything in that town. 

 

Merle was delighted with their discovery. “Y’know Luc, with your records we’re basically millionaires! I could even help you with copying some down on papers that we can give out before I leave to go get killed by John.”  

 

“That’s a good point, Merle, and I would really appreciate that. I think that I may need to reformat some of it, though. A lot of the earlier entries are a bit -- I think maybe ‘dry’ is the word for it.” 

 

Davenport looked up at Lucretia with a smile from under his moustache. “I’m confident that you’ll have no trouble polishing up our stories. Just don’t work yourself too hard, and ask us for help if you need it.” 

 

...

 

Back on board the ship, Merle and Lucretia sat cross legged on the floor with piles of journals surrounding them, trying to pull together as many succinct, but interesting tales as they could before going back to the town and seeing what they could buy. Lucretia inspected each page and went through her records in an orderly manner while Merle grabbed up books at random and haphazardly flipped through pages, waiting for something to catch his eye. He picked up one that contained the first half of their eleventh year and started reading at a spot part-way through it.

  
  


_ Day thirty four  _

_ Ship clock reads hour five _

 

_ Observing the landscape from the cockpit. A small herd of the same quadrupedal animals as first observed and described on day two. Visible from the cockpit, Barry and Lup are standing on the deck looking out at the animals as well. They’re having an animated conversation that lasts for the duration of the sunrise. Readings on the control panel report the outside temperature as seventy three degrees with wind being at nineteen miles per hour, humidity is twenty percent. Pulse oximeter readout is ninety two percent.  _

 

_ Hour six _

 

_ Noises heard from the direction of the common area. Moving there, Magnus, Davenport, and Merle are sitting at the table and talking. Conversation consists of plans for the day; Davenport will perform his monthly inspection of the ship, and Magnus will chaperone Merle into town where he plans to spend the day proselytizing. Taako is in the kitchen preparing breakfast. Everyone sits for breakfast, except for Barry and Lup who come in from the deck a few minutes late. Taako seems upset, but then Lup makes him laugh. Lup and Barry discuss their plans to spend several days working and doing research out in the field. Taako makes a joke about Barry’s affinity for science, Davenport lightly reprimands him, Barry is quiet until Lup starts talking to him in a hushed side-conversation. Magnus dominates the main points of conversation for the remainder of breakfast, mostly re-telling events of the year so far that have already been recorded, full details non-essential. _

 

_ Hour seven- _

  
  


“-Wow, Luc. You weren’t kidding -- these early records are pretty boring.” He tossed aside the journal he was holding, barely missing the pile nearest him.

 

“Here. This one might be more your speed.” Lucretia handed Merle one of the deep blue, felt-covered books that she had fallen in love with and stocked up on in their twenty seventh year. 

 

Merle took the journal and flipped through it, stopping on a random page.

  
  


_ Day 74 _

 

_ Merle, Magnus, and I stayed onboard the ship while everyone else went out to check on a settlement we came across earlier. Magnus complained about being bored, so Merle said that he could do a reading of his most recent Pan sermon that he was working on. Magnus quickly shot that down (thank you, Magnus) and suggested that we play hide and seek. I wasn’t sure at first, but then I remembered that a while back, I had come across a perfect hiding spot, in the [REDACTED].  _

_ So, we voted against Merle, but he ended up getting into it. He said he’d had a spot in mind for a while; turned out it was in a vent that he wanted to try getting into before. He thought it might be a “shortcut” from the common room to the sun room, but Davenport told him not to try it because he would get stuck.  _

_ He used it as his hiding spot and got stuck. He didn’t want Davenport to be able to say “I told you so,” so Magnus and I tried to find a way to get him out, quick. We ended up using some of Taako’s olive oil because we couldn’t find any cooking oil or butter. Magnus never ended up finding my spot since Merle started yelling for us to help him before the game even started. So, still got that in my arsenal. Hella(1) _ _.  _

 

_ (Addition from day 75) Taako noticed that we used his oil, but none of us admitted to it and he eventually forgot (unless he’s still holding a grudge about it and not saying anything… that’s probably more likely.) _

  
  
  
  
_____________________  
(1)  _Taako frequently uses this term. I’m not sure what it means, but I like how it sounds._  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Merle closed the journal, smiling. 

“That was a fun day! I forgot all about that.” 

 

Lucretia laughed. “You forget about  _ everything, _ Merle.” 

 

“Well! it’s just because I’ve got my head full of so much Pan knowledge, that’s all.”

 

“Of course, Merle.” Lucretia didn’t look up from the page she was reading. “That must be it.” 

 

Merle rolled his eyes, dropped the journal in his hand, and picked up the next closest one from the floor.  

 

“So hey... where is your hiding spot, anyways?” 

 

Lucretia barely raised her eyes above the edge of the journal and gave Merle an intense stare. 

 

“I’m taking that to my grave.” 

 

***

  
  


The stories that Lucretia and Merle compiled were a hit with the vendors in town, and they ended up with armfuls of goods from their first shopping trip. 

 

The crew celebrated their haul and prepared to send off Merle with an over-the-top dinner. Taako and Lup spent hours in the kitchen and Merle joined them, sitting on a stool in a space out of their way near the pantry. 

 

“I don’t know how you two move so fast and don’t crash into each other. That’s some serious coordination.”

 

Lup slipped a knife out of the knife block just as Taako swooped under her arm, a bowl of freshly cleaned vegetables held tight against his chest. She turned to Merle and thoughtfully tapped the dull side of the knife against her lips. 

 

“We’ve had to make do with some pretty small spaces before, so I guess we’re good at choreographing around each other on the fly.” Lup turned to the counter where Taako had set the vegetables for her to chop, and then smiled. 

“I guess I never really thought about it, but it is pretty cool, huh?”

 

“It sure is!” Merle kicked his hanging feet back and forth as he sat on the kitchen stool. “Like a dance!”

 

“You and your dancing.” Taako lifted a wooden spoon to his lips to test the texture of the roux he had just made. He tossed the spoon in the sink and grabbed a new one. 

 

Merle cocked his head. “Why’d ya do that?”

 

Taako shot Merle a quizzical look. “Uhh, because I put my mouth on it?” 

 

Merle let out a flippant, breathy laugh. “You really think anyone cares at this point?”

 

Taako set his hands on his hips, still holding the spoon. “ _ I care, _ Merle. I’m not a damn animal.” 

 

“What’s wrong with animals?” Merle kept lazily kicking his feet around, unphased. “It’s not gonna  _ kill  _ anyone. You don’t need to make a buncha extra dishes to wash.” 

 

“You’re not doing them tonight, so why do you even care? Also, I’m not making the decision for everyone else that they’re like, totally cool with my saliva being stirred into their food.”

 

Merle stopped swinging his legs and tossed up his arms in an exasperated gesture. “Well  _ excuse me  _ for trying to make things easier for you!”

 

Taako raised his eyebrows high in disbelief. “It’s at most gonna be maybe  _ three more spoons, _ no one is going to waste away and perish over the extra thirty seconds it takes to wash them! It isn’t going to be the straw that gives someone dishpan hands!” 

 

Lup laughed to herself. The ways that Merle could unintentionally get under Taako’s skin within a sentence or two was endlessly entertaining. She had been missing Merle ever since he started leaving them for parley every year. It was different than other deaths, since he was sort of gleefully and intentionally entering the situation with the demeanor of someone going out for coffee. But, he was still gone so much and there was a strange hole without him there. And it was all because he was doing something so important for them -- even if some of them were getting frustrated with how he was handling it. Lup understood why, but she had also seen how adept Merle was at being convincing, at getting people to trust and follow him, and how good he was at maintaining and honoring that trust once it had been diligently fostered by him. He had a strange way of doing things, for sure, and everyone else had their own idea of how they would use parley if they were the one who had the ability, but she had started to come around to thinking that he might actually have been the best one out of them for it. Plus, he seemed pretty unphased by ‘John’. Anyone else would have probably been at the fucker’s throat the second they had the chance. 

 

***

 

Taako swaggered into the common room, making it obvious that he was waiting for everyone to look at him before he ‘casually’ made an announcement.

 

“Well, this beefcake’s gonna go hit the gym. Basically got a lifetime membership with my stories from Tesseralia.”

 

Magnus jumped up from the couch. 

“Nice! I can spot you!”

 

Taako closed his eyes and shook a finger. 

“No no no. Mags. This is a very personal and spiritual journey I’m on. Taako’s getting ripped all on his own.”

 

“Fine.” Magnus crossed his arms and looked around the room, thinking of what he could do; he had been bored out of his mind all day. 

“You know what, then?  _ I’m _ gonna learn some magic.”

 

Taako sputtered out a single, loud laugh. “Like hell you are.”

 

“I’d like to see you try and stop me when you fail a bench press and are pinned down under the bar.”

Taako scoffed. “I didn’t mean I was gonna  _ stop  _ you. I mean like, there’s no way in hell you’re gonna learn squat without me around.”

 

Magnus frowned as Taako turned to the door and waved behind him. 

“Don’t worry boo-boo, I can teach you some stuff later, just gotta get my sweat on first.” 

 

Taako walked out the door and Magnus sat back on the couch at the opposite end of where Barry was relaxing with a book. Barry looked up from reading and saw Magnus’s disappointed expression. 

 

“Hey, uhh -- I’ll work out with you, Magnus.” 

 

Magnus jumped to his feet and pumped an enthusiastic fist into the air. 

 

“Yaaay, Barold! Let’s head to my room, I’ve got some weights there. Since I’m sure Taako probably doesn’t want us to follow him.”

 

“Sure, let’s do it!” Barry set his book down and followed Magnus out of the common room. And then he came up with an idea as they walked. 

 

"Y’know, I’m not like - anywhere near as good as Taako, obviously, but I have picked up a fair amount of stuff at this point. I think I could teach you a bit.” 

 

“Yes! That’s perfect, we can swap skills! This is the part where we do a montage, right?” 

 

Barry laughed. “I don’t really know how to work that out logistically, but we can sure as hell try.” 

 

…

 

Barry groaned as he struggled to finish the last rep of a set of overhead presses. 

“Shit, I knew I was soft, but I didn’t think that I was this bad.” 

 

“What are you talking about, Barold? The fact that you can lift for more than twenty minutes on day one is good! You’re gonna be sore as hell tomorrow, though.” 

 

Barry sat on the ground and wiped off his forehead with a towel. 

“Really? I feel like I’ve barely done anything. I mean, I’ve seen you go at this sort of thing all day before. Even after a full day of work.” 

 

Magnus chuckled. “Well don’t compare yourself to me! I kinda sorta do this a lot.”

 

“Yeah, that’s true. I just get self conscious, I guess.” Barry sighed and fixated on his insecurities for a moment. He had been trying to stuff them away, but they still came up. And doing something that he considered himself to be bad at right next to Magnus... was probably not the best confidence booster.  

“I guess it’s just that I feel like I’m all soft from sitting in the lab most of the time and everyone else is out there doing  _ real  _ stuff.” 

 

Magnus started on a set of deadlifts, talking between heavy breaths. “What are you talking about? The stuff you do is as real as it gets! Can’t even wrap my head around stuff you do. Might as well be magic to me.” 

 

“Hah, well maybe after we practice some magic, I can show you how Lup and I run some of our standard yearly tests.”

 

“That would be neat! See,” Magnus dropped the barbell and quieted his booming voice, suddenly sounding serious, “what you two do actually sticks with you. I might be strong, but with resetting every year -- this is as good as it’s ever going to get. All of you are getting more powerful all the time and protecting yourselves on your own more, and-” 

Barry thought he heard Magnus’s voice shake a bit. 

 

“Ah shit, Magnus…”

 

“Hah, it’s okay. I just don’t want to fall behind.”

 

“What? You could never. Hey...” Barry put a hand on his shoulder and paused for a moment as he tried to think of how to put together the words he wanted to say. 

 

“Magnus. You’re the strongest person that I know. I mean yeah, physically you’re pretty intimidating,” Barry laughed and lowered his hand. “But also -- the way you’re able to care. I don’t know if you notice, but everyone seems to lose some of that every time we fail. It wears us all down. But, you haven’t really changed at all. I don’t know how you do it, you- you care so much that I think you probably get hurt more than anyone else because of it. But you don’t stop. And I don’t think that you ever will. And honestly, that’s the kind of strength that we need more than anything else because… because this thing we’re doing, it has the very real possibility of just destroying us emotionally. And then we wouldn’t be able to help anyone.” 

 

Barry looked at the floor and furrowed his brow, wanting to stay on a roll of saying what at least felt like the right thing, hoping he was picking his words carefully enough. He admired Magnus so much and he didn’t know how he could possibly be insecure; the whole thing threw him off. 

 

“You’re the heart of this crew, and I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that seeing how you handle things -- it reminds me to keep positive. And, I know for a fact that you’re always going to be able to protect us, but that’s not all you’re here for. Yeah you’re the muscle, but you’re also kinda like the glue.”

 

Magnus was not one to try and hold back tears or hide his emotions. Through watering eyes, he gave Barry a grateful smile. 

 

“Barry… thank you.” Magnus wrapped him in a bear hug, nearly knocking the wind out of him. He laughed through Magnus’s tight hold on him and hugged him back.

 

“No problem, bud. And thanks for calling me Barry.” 

 

***

 

“Hey, what did I miss? I’ve been at the gym basically the whole year, feel like I haven’t seen you all in forever.” Taako came strutting into the Starblaster, wearing one of the many top-of-the-line athletic ensembles that he had purchased earlier in the year.

 

Davenport looked up from his hand of cards at the dining table where he was teaching Lucretia how to play. “Too bad all that effort is just going to be undone at the beginning of next year.” 

 

Taako fell onto the couch, worn out from his long day. “Nah, I’m pretty sure it’s gonna stick.”

 

“Taako that’s… not true. You  _ know _ that.”

 

“Don’t even bother, Cap’n.” Lup’s disembodied voice came from the opposite side of the couch where she was laid out on the floor, drawing. “He’s just being an ass.” 

 

“Look, don’t hate on me because I’m turning my body into a beautiful, beefy temple and you wasted the year doing… whatever it is y’all did this year.”

Davenport remained perplexed. “But, Taako…”

 

Taako rolled off of the couch, picked himself up, and then walked over to one of the larger windows and started flexing, looking at his reflection. “Sorry, I can’t hear you over how good I look. C’mon over here Mags, let’s compare muscles.”

 

Magnus practically ran from the couch over to the mirror, a look of pure glee on his face, and went straight into flexing alongside Taako, who wasn’t taking his eyes off of himself. 

 

“Damn!  I’m getting pretty diesel over here.”

 

Magnus turned away from the window to look at Taako “And I’m a wizard now!”

 

Taako turned to Magnus with an intentionally exaggerated, cheesy smile. “And I’m a fighter and we’re best friends!”

 

The two laughed and Magnus energetically pat Taako on the back. Lup army crawled out from behind the couch, because she felt like it, then lazily got herself up and walked over to Taako. 

 

“Cmon, Ko. Let’s go practice, you don’t want Magnus to become a better wizard than you.” 

 

“Tch. That’s fine, few more years of this and I’m gonna be a beast compared to him.” 

 

Davenport overheard Taako and just couldn’t let it go. 

“Oh my gods Taako, next year you’re going to be-”

 

“A dreamboat with abs like a god? Pretty cool, right?” Taako was grinning ear to ear at seeing Davenport’s exasperated face. 

 

Lup laughed and then ran for the door to the outside and motioned for Taako to come after her. 

“Come on! I’m booored!” 

 

…

 

Lup pointed into the distance. “There’s this big ol empty area with a pretty huge dirt mound down there, figured that could be a good practice spot.” 

 

“Cool, cool.” Taako was in a particularly impish mood that day.and he strolled along intentionally slowly, knowing that Lup was impatient and it was bugging the hell out of her. “So, what are you practicing?” 

 

“I mean -- alllll the different kinds of fire stuff because, y’know. That’s the good shit.”

 

“Pfft, you’re gonna get sloppy on everything else, though. And uhh, Barry’s actually getting pretty okay at some stuff. You don’t want the nerd to pass you up in the transmutation department, do you?”

 

Lup waved Taako off. “That’s okay, I think at this point I can solve just about any problem by incinerating it. That’s how it works, right?” 

 

“Sure, sure. But,” Taako stopped dead in his tracks, “-- can you do something cool as fuck like…  _ this.” _ And Taako vanished. 

 

Less than thirty seconds later, he reappeared in the same exact spot. 

 

Lup tried not to break out into raucous laughter in her brother’s face. “Yeah, that actually wasn’t as cool as you think it was. Did you really get that rusty at blink?”

 

Seeing Taako’s lost expression, Lup’s demeanor changed instantly.

 

“Hey… you okay?” She stepped close to him, set a hand on his shoulder and studied his face. 

 

“Yeah, I -- I saw something. Or, a lot of somethings, actually. I...” Taako shook his head and tried to focus. 

 

“Lup, I think… I think we’re being watched.” 


	36. Noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Thirty Six

  
  


“Again?” 

Lup sat on the deck of the Starblaster, watching as Taako reappeared after vanishing for several minutes. 

 

“Yeah.” Taako’s ears twitched. He turned and looked off into the distance, avoiding eye contact with any of them. Barry stood with his back leaned up against the railing, looking concerned. 

 

“So, uh -- what do they look like?” 

 

“Short, glowing white little dudes, clinging on the walls and standing around. They bounce on out as soon as they see me looking at them.” 

 

Davenport paused his pacing back and forth and exhaled. 

 

“And you said you’ve never seen them before?” 

 

Taako shook his head. 

 

Davenport looked at the floor, his brow crumpled in worry. “I have the feeling that it might have something to do with Merle’s… visits. Maybe the Hunger is more aware of us, or knows too much about us now.” 

 

“Yeah, that would pretty much suck, wouldn’t it?” Taako combed a hand through his hair and eased himself back into composure. “Nothing to do about it right now though, so I’m gonna go get dinner started.” 

 

“I’ll come help you.” Lup effortlessly hopped into a standing position with a single motion and bounced over to Taako. As they walked towards the door, she gave one last glance off of the deck over the endless, empty landscape surrounding them. 

 

“Man, this place has got shit-nothin’. Glad we stocked the up last year. But, I guess we got salt forever now though, right?” 

 

“Eugh, not really.” Taako made a disgusted face. “Tasted some earlier and It completely sucks. Was like licking the inside of a lightbulb.”

 

Lup laughed at the image. “And how the fuck do you know what that tastes like?”

 

“I don’t. I can just imagine it. My mind palace is chock full of wondrous similes and imagery, you should know that.” 

 

“Chock full of dog shit, more like it.” 

 

Taako narrowed his eyes at his sister and then raced to the door, dashing inside and locking it before Lup could charge after him. He stared at her from the other side of the small window and stuck his tongue out. She gave him a cheerful, but hostile stare from the other side of the glass, the kind of stare that would terrify anyone but Taako. 

 

“You are  _ not  _ going to like what happens when I get in there.” 

 

Taako had to yell for Lup to hear his muffled voice through the thick door. “What was that? Can’t hear you.” 

 

Lup stepped back from the door and looked around. She considered jumping the railing and finding some way to scale down the side of the ship, but realized that would almost  _ definitely  _ not work out the way that she would want it to. She looked back at Taako through the window, shrugged, and decided to take the shameless way out. 

 

“Caaap’n! Taako locked us out.” Looking over at Davenport, Lup pouted pitifully and as he started to walk over, she whipped her head back around and smiled deviously at Taako through the window. He scrunched up his face at her and unlocked the door. He narrowly opened it just as Davenport was walking up and asking what was going on, and he poked his head through the opening and leered at Lup.

 

“Puh-thetic. I thought you were better than that.” 

 

Lup laughed and laid a finger over her mouth, looking thoughtful for a moment before dropping her hand. “Mmm. Nah.” She turned and started to walk back to the opposite end of the deck. “Just for that, I’m making you set up in the kitchen alone. I’ll roll in for the fun parts, later.” 

 

“Uh huh, sure.” Taako held the door open as Davenport walked inside, entering the ship silently and brushing off whatever shenanigans were going on in favor of worrying over the latest strange news. 

 

Taako thought about how convenient it was for Lup that she had ended up on the deck alone with Barry. Maybe if he locked them both out there for the rest of the night  _ something  _ would happen with them. But, then again, they sometimes spent entire weeks hiking and camping together, and they still didn’t get it. If he locked them out, they would only continue to be oblivious, and Lup would find some way to completely destroy him later. So, he left to start getting dinner ready. And thirty seconds later, he turned back around and locked the door anyways. 

 

***

 

The solid salt ground crunched beneath their feet as they marched on into the endless expanse of pale aquamarine flatlands, marked by the occasional small cliff with series of shelves running up and down them. Aside from the cliffs and some deep rivulets where a few inches of mineral laden water had carved its way through the crystal ground, it was an otherwise featureless landscape. Everywhere they had landed, every place they had tried traveling to, there was only more of the same imposing and impossible to navigate land with bizarre landmarks repeating infinitely, all of it sparkling white and blinding in the bright, cold, oblong sun. 

 

They were over halfway through their year, and it wasn’t until that hike that Lup, Barry, and Magnus found the first sign of life. Or, it was more like they heard it. But not really heard… 

 

“Hey, what the shit.” Magnus spun around in a circle, searching frantically. Lup and Barry looked at him with bewilderment. They were in the middle of a conversation when Magnus just stopped walking and started shouting and looking around. Lup carefully stepped towards him. 

 

“Magnus, what’s up?”

 

“Shh, hold on.” Magnus cocked an eyebrow and held a finger up to indicate his request for silence. He continued to silently look around desperately at nothing. After a full minute, he looked startled again. 

 

“What? Who is this? Where are you, where is that coming from… what? Hey, _ you  _ be fucking quiet! You’re the one talking!” 

 

Then Barry heard something, as well. “Oh… wait, what?” 

 

And then they all heard the same voice in their heads. It was one voice, but it was overlapping itself multiple multiple times with some layers being at a slightly different speed from the voices underneath it, so that the overall effect was almost digitized or even a bit demonic. But, it was in its own way, a soft and timid voice, and definitely non-threatening. And even though it felt like all of the words were somehow happening at once,  it was easy to understand the voice being forced into their minds. 

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/26045771@N06/48790280578/in/dateposted-public/)

 

“Umm. Hi?” Lup shrugged at Barry and Magnus. “Where are you?” 

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/26045771@N06/48790280668/in/dateposted-public/)  

Lup turned and walked a few feet to the stream carved deep into the salt ground and peered into it. “OH, wow shit, uh.” 

 

Barry and Magnus hurried to her side and saw that in the slowly running water, there was something moving. They crouched down to look into the stream and saw a difficult to piece together shape; it was similar to the color of the ground, but a bit more gray and with swathes of skin hanging from its limbs and flowing in the lightly running water like layers upon layers of tissue… it was somewhat humanoid, at least in terms of length and general body structure -- legs, torso, arms, and a head, though it was a featureless one. Lying in the water, it clung with its long thin arms and spindly fingers to some grooves in the bed of the stream. As they watched, eyes pushed upward through the underneath of the cloudy mass of flesh that made up the head. The red tinted eyes blinked a few times, and then stared up at the three of them. 

In addition to the words, they felt the presence of images in their minds; not visible images, but something like a sensation of visuals. It gave them a tingling feeling in the front of their faces, almost like a suppressed sneeze, but centered right above the eyes. The images were of vibrations, the way that they felt and looked and sounded all at once in a picture that didn’t exist. The feeling of discomfort was communicated to them and they knew that the being was not happy with the noise from them walking near the stream. 

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/26045771@N06/48790280608/in/dateposted-public/)  


 

Lup backed away from the edge of the water. “Okay, umm. Shit, we’ll just leave then?” 

 

Magnus backed away as well, but Barry was brimming with curiosity. 

“Actually -- if I’m quiet, can I ask you some questions?” 

 

 

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/26045771@N06/48790644141/in/dateposted-public/)

Barry’s face was tense with confusion, but he stayed quiet. Magnus and Lup backed up further from the salt creek and watched. 

 

Barry concentrated on thinking to the creature. He tried imagining his own voice in his head, thinking of himself talking and the words he would say, but that didn’t seem to work. Then, he felt like something was shuffling through his thoughts, activating small flashes of memories, and there was a numb, impossible to grasp disruption in his ability to think. And then he was able to connect; something wove together and made sense and he was communicating thoughts in a subtle and indirect way. He could feel it working, but he also felt that he had barely any control on what it was that he was sharing. It was as if his head was open and all the thoughts were just there, exposed. But, only certain things were being pulled out. 

 

After several minutes of absolute silence, Barry turned around and walked over to Lup and Magnus, looking like he was in a daze. 

 

Magnus put an arm around Barry’s shoulder, looking worried for him. “What was all of that?” 

 

“It just kind of… took everything about us and why we’re here, and gave me this whole -- gave me everything.”

 

“Everything?” Lup raised a curious eyebrow. 

 

“Like, all of the history and major events of this planet. The evolution of their species. And uh, there being no other types of living forms on this planet and why that is. It sort of happened all at once.” Barry put a hand to his forehead, looking dizzy. Lup rushed over, ready to help Magnus brace him.

 

“No, no I’m alright. Just kind of have -- a head rush, sort of? Like that but deeper, if that makes sense. It’s like… the back of my brain is sore.”

 

Magnus grimaced trying to imagine what that felt like. “Ugh. That sounds awful.”

 

Lup nodded, her face traced with worry. “Well, shit. Wanna go back to the ship, debrief, get you some rest?” 

 

Barry sighed. “Yeah, sounds like a good idea.”  

 

***

 

Magnus, Lup and Barry went over the full details of their latest trek and their first contact with life on the planet with Davenport. Lucretia sat at the table with them and hurried to write down every last bit. 

 

Davenport fidgeted with the left end of his mustache as he often did when something gave him reason to be nervous. “So, it just transferred all of that knowledge to you?”

 

“I guess you could call it a transfer.” Barry slowly raised his shoulders and kneaded his eyebrows in thought. “I don’t know how to put it. It’s like I was given the emotions of things being described, and felt more than saw visual representations -- and I know that I’m contradicting myself there, but,” Barry scratched at the side of his face, trying to find the right descriptors. “I don’t know; that’s the only way I can get across the feeling. But, yeah it only took a minute for me to just... know everything about this world. It's way too much to explain, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

 

Lucretia wrote furiously, eyes wide. “Can you take me to it? Maybe if I can communicate with it too, I can get some of it down?” 

 

Magnus nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I can take you there, I remember exactly where it’s at!” 

 

Barry was relieved that Magnus was willing to take on the task of going back. “I’m not sure whether it will be in the same spot though. But there were others, they were just kind of hard to see in the flow of the water against the white. Or, I guess it showed me that there were others.”

 

Lup saw Barry’s expression and could tell that he didn’t want to go back. So, she decided to stay, too… “Oh, and be sure to step softly. Seemed like vibrations in the ground were really upsetting for them.” 

 

“Oh!” Lucretia quickly jotted down the new piece of information in her journal as she got up and started to follow Magnus out the door. Davenport also got up to leave, wanting to write a report of his own, but paused to address Lup first. 

 

“I haven’t forgotten about the door latch. We still need to talk about that.” 

 

Lup sighed. “I  _ know, _ and I’ll fix it. But you should really be talking to Taako, not me. If he wasn’t doing dumb shit like locking me out, I wouldn’t have to melt off doorknobs.” 

 

Barry suppressed a laugh and tried to casually cover his mouth with a hand. Davenport gave an exasperated sigh before leaving for his office. Lup called after him as he left.

 

“You know I love you, cap’n! I’ll get it fixed, don’t worry!” 

 

Davenport disappeared down the hallway, leaving the two alone in the common room.

 

Lup turned to Barry. “Well?” 

 

“Well… we’ve gotten a whole lot done today already…”

 

“Scootch quitting time up a little early?” 

 

Barry smiled. “As long as nothing else comes up, why not?”

 

Lup stood and stretched, willing away the tightness in her muscles from the weight of the day.

“Alright! So, let me think -- why don’t we-” Lup stopped short as Barry also got up from where they had been sitting at the dining table. He stood facing her, only a couple steps away, and she had a shiver of warmth and a shadow of dizziness run through her after finishing her long stretch. 

_ Gods, I just want to walk up to him and feel his hands on my waist and I want to be close and I want it to be natural and normal and  _

“-we could go over that cryptozoology book you got in Tesseralia?”

 

“Oh yeah, haven’t had much time for that guy yet! I would love getting into that.” 

 

Lup smiled brightly. “Great! I’ll go make us some more coffee and we can kick back with notepads and a weirdo, pointless book?” 

 

“Yeah. That sounds great.” Barry watched Lup leave the room and completely forgot what he was doing for a moment. As soon as she was out of sight, he snapped out of it and went to get the book.

 

...

 

“Oh my gods, look at this funky little dude.” Lup pointed to an illustration of something that looked like a small-dog sized pachyderm with a single eye in the center of its face. “They had a lot of strange animals there -- I wonder what it was that someone saw and thought was this weirdo monstrosity.” 

 

“Hmm.” Barry read through the paragraph underneath the picture. “Says that it was seen out in that forest way outside of Tesseralia and that it -- steals babies?”

 

Lup snorted. “Wait, how? It doesn’t have any hands.This book is bullshit!”

 

Barry and Lup were laughing as they read aloud to each other when Lucretia walked in from outside with Magnus trailing behind her. He looked disappointed as he addressed the two of them. 

 

“So, there was actually a bunch of the things this time, but they don’t really like me because my steps are too heavy apparently. Annnd I have a hard time staying still. So they wouldn’t talk to us, and they took off down stream.”

 

“Oh.” Barry looked thoughtful as he tried to think of how to help. “Okay -- I sort of hit it off with them, I think. Maybe I can try taking you back in the morning, since it’s starting to get dark out?” 

 

Lucretia nodded. “That would be great, Barry, thank you.” 

  
  


After Magnus and Lucretia left, Barry and Lup continued to read. They sat looking through the large book centered between them, lying halfway across both of their laps. The lights started to dim in the ship so Barry hit the lamp embedded in the face of the side table next to them and it illuminated the immediate area around them with a low, golden light. 

 

“Huh, I guess we’ve been at this for a while. Didn’t realize it was so late.” 

 

“Hmm.” Lup ran her finger along the sentence she was reading before fully processing Barry’s observation. “Oh. Did you need to go to bed?”

 

“Actually, I’m not really tired, I-” Barry looked over to their empty mugs on the coffee table in front of them. “I guess we kinda had a lot of caffeine. Finished that pot, huh?” 

 

“Oh shit, yeah. Woops!” Lup looked over to their mugs and remembered that there was a secondary reason that she had for staying up with Barry. 

 

“So, Barry... uh, how are you doing? I mean, we haven’t really had like a serious conversation in a while. Not that I don’t like goofing around and doing our research and all those kinds of convos, but like… how  _ are  _ you?”

 

“Oh, u-uh -- I uh, guess mostly okay?” Barry felt himself panicking. The question was unexpected and it brought on an immediate torrent of scrambled thoughts. How he was doing, how he felt, everything about him; it was all completely reliant on her existence, her proximity to him. She owned his feelings, her name was stamped on his every thought. But she couldn’t know that.

“I’m…” Barry tried to quiet his mind and look for something to tell Lup, some truth about himself that wasn’t all about her, about how she was sitting next to him, about how he was alone with her. 

As he calmed and found the breath and space to focus on himself for a moment, he realized that he was actually doing pretty well. With a lot of things. Compared to when they started, definitely, and even compared to not all that many years before. And the thing that excited him about that was that he could be a better person to her, around her, for her. But -- he couldn’t say that part. 

 

“I, um --” Barry took a deep breath, “I think I’m actually doing good. Nothing has gotten easier you know, but...” Barry tapped a finger against his chin, thinking of how to get across his meaning. “It’s like, things haven’t gotten easier, but I feel better at dealing with them. For the most part.” 

 

“That’s really great Barry! I’m glad. What about with --” Lup hesitated to ask about the thing that was most worrisome; she didn’t want to start down a negative path. But also, she had started the conversation already, so it was the best time to ask about  _ that. _

 

“What about… what about with the light?”

 

Barry took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly as he thought about it. “You know. It’s still  _ completely  _ fucked up. And I still don’t know a lot about it. It’s ominous as all hell and not something I’m necessarily happy about working with but -- but, I don’t feel like I’m crawling in my skin around it anymore.” 

 

“Barry! That’s amazing!” Lup felt herself on the verge of tearing up. She was so happy for him. “That has got to make things so much easier, I’m -- I’m really proud of you.” She set a hand on his shoulder and looked at him with a sincere and gleaming smile that made him feel lightheaded.  

 

“Y-yeah, it’s not really the part that gets to me about this -- this whole thing, anymore. The parts that are hard are, I guess, things with all of us, or the things that happen to us, like uh… like the last time you died -- or that I guess we, we -- helped you die. That was hard, but mostly becau- I--” Barry inhaled deeply again and continued to falter over his words. He hadn’t planned on talking about that, but it was happening. “I -- failed. You. And I just, I -- I want to be able to do  _ anything  _ for you. I don’t  _ ever  _ want to fail you. Again.” He felt like shrinking into the ground. 

_ Fuck… that was a little much.  _

 

Lup held back tears. The thing that had him more upset than even  _ the light _ was the terrible thing that she had asked him to do. He was nervously looking away from her, tripping over muttering out some apology, and all she wanted to do in the low warm light was to gently turn his face to her and tell him that it was okay, that everything was okay, but she knew - she knew what would happen next if she had her palm on his cheek and his eyes on her and if she looked at him and apologized for that year in the low dim warm light with the sides of their legs touching as they held a book between each other. She knew what would happen. And that it couldn’t happen. So she instead patted his shoulder twice and then settled her hand back down on the open book, tapped nervously on the page a few times, and noticed her knees shaking a bit underneath the spine of the book.

 

“I’m sorry about what I asked you and Taako to do. And, sorry that it caused a fight.” 

 

Barry flinched at the memory. The whole year had been awful with what happened to Lup. But that part with Taako -- he felt ashamed. As much as he didn’t want to, he did. 

“I-it’s okay. Besides, last year was really nice. Things aren’t always terrible. And when they are, it isn’t anyone’s fault. But, anyways… what about you, Lup? Uh -- how are you?” 

 

Lup forced a smile, determined to bring their evening back up from the emotional nose dive it had taken because of her. “Oh, you know me. Nothing gets ya girl down!” 

 

Barry smiled and chuckled quietly as he looked back down at the book. But then his face softened and it seemed like he wanted to say something. She watched him expectantly. He hesitated, but then looked up and locked eyes with her.

 

“I mean, really -- there has to be something?” 

 

Lup frowned a bit. “There doesn’t  _ have  _ to be something wrong with me.” 

 

Barry’s eyes widened. “Oh no, shit I mean, I meant -- this, everything is -- unless it really  _ is _ just me, I don’t see how any of us don’t have at least  _ something  _ wrong, still, I -- and you know, you don’t  _ have  _ to talk a-about anything, that was - that was inconsiderate of me Lup, I’m sorry.” 

 

Lup bit the inside of her lip. She didn’t know why she was being defensive with him. “Shit… no. It’s -- hard to talk about anything. It’s hard for me. To talk about things. And,” Lup broke eye contact with him and looked down at her fingers that were nervously tapping at the page of the book in front of her again. “I hate bringing the mood down. And, I hate whenever I’ve been a wreck and brought you down with me. I want to keep things… happy, and hopeful, I want to stay motivated. I hate that I-” she paused and sucked in her breath and tried to keep herself from speeding through a string of emotional words. Something in her was shaking loose and threatening to tumble out of her mouth and she needed to reel it in. 

“I really,  _ really  _ hate what I did to you, to Taako, to everyone on -- that year. And sometimes, Barry, honestly, I’m just so fucking angry at myself. That was another whole year, another  _ whole planet, _ and I wasn’t there to help, and on top of that I made everyone miserable, which made it harder to work. That was time wasted and more failure and more destruction and-” Barry interrupted her with the tips of his fingers on her chin, and she felt her words catch in her throat as her heart started to race. He tilted her head back towards him, their eyes locking once more and she felt that rush again, that something that shouldn’t happen was going to happen but it shouldn’t and it wasn’t going to because it  _ couldn’t and- _

 

“Lup.” Just in saying her name, she heard something in his tone that she was sure she had never heard before. “Lup, you had no control over what happened.” He almost laughed; it was unthinkable for her to feel bad about that. It was impossible, she shouldn’t… “I know though, I know -- I’m not going to try and tell you how to feel, but I can tell you that-” he lowered his hand from her chin, realizing suddenly that he had lingered there. He set his hand down on the opposite side of the book as hers before continuing. “I can tell you that you didn’t  _ do  _ anything to us. Things just… happened. And things are going to keep happening. And there’s not a whole lot we can do.” He looked downward with a humorless smile. “Wow, that’s grim. Not helpful, sorry.” 

 

“No, Barry.” She cautiously moved a hand over to settle on top of his. “It helps. There’s no use in being upset over what we can’t control. We just have to look for the things that we can.” She looked at him through half-lidded eyes as he rose to meet her gaze again, and he smiled gratefully at her, glad that she picked up on the things he couldn’t figure out how to say. He relaxed under the feeling of her hand on top of his, and as he melted he tried to suppress an oncoming yawn, but his body betrayed him and his exhaustion was more apparent than he wanted it to be. She moved her hand away. 

 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Lup laughed, a bit hollow, disappointed. “I kept you up way too late. I actually should get some rest too. We’ve all got work to do tomorrow!” 

 

***

 

Lucretia and Barry set out early in the morning, stepping lightly across the sparkling salt floor, walking the same mile long path towards the section of stream where they had originally found the being. They were a little over halfway through their walk when they saw something wrong. Not far in the distance, they saw what looked like a large body of water instead of the narrow ditch from before. They pressed on and as they drew closer to the water, they saw that instead of the once slow current, the water was thrashing its way along what had widened into a violent river, sending shining froth and mist everywhere. Broken pieces of the salt ground were jutting out from the water at jagged angles and the noise from the water crushing and shattering the fractured ridges of solid salt was like cymbals clashing over the hissing of dying fireworks.

And then, moving down the water in time with the tumultuous current was a beam of light, jerking back and forth as it hit stray chunks of salt or was thrown against the inside edges of the river. Lucretia and Barry looked at each other before each grabbing their stones of farspeech and breaking into a run towards the water, planning to try and follow where the light went. But they didn’t get much closer until they were hit with a wall of noise so powerful that it was unbearably painful. It sounded like thousands of voices layered over each other, some screeching and threatening, others wailing in agony, some bellowing commands in low tones, others howling unintelligible words at ear splitting decibels... 

 

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/26045771@N06/48790644201/in/dateposted-public/)

 

 

They couldn’t withstand the frenzied cacophony of noise. Barry held his hands over his ears, even knowing that it wouldn’t do anything with the noise coming from within, but not being able to help the reflex; there were only reflexes, there was no ability to think, nothing but pain and reactions to that pain. He couldn’t even keep his eyes open and he tried to blindly run, not knowing where to go but not having any other recourse. And then he tripped, his foot hitting something solid, but with some give. As he fell over, he opened his eyes and looked behind him to see what he tripped over just enough to see Lucretia’s fallen body, and he was instantly sick to his stomach. The impact of his knees against the ground cracked it slightly, and the reverberations caused the voices to increase in intensity, with even more voices somehow joining the flood. Barry felt a force shaking the ground under him and heard it continue to crackle as salt sprayed everywhere, great clouds of it being jettisoned directly at him, and he could feel cuts forming along his hands and face as the ground opened up beneath him. Barry felt himself falling, hitting chunks of ground that exploded into fine particles of salt as he was thrown against ledge after ledge as he fell and fell, and -- then, darkness.

 

***

 

As the ground gave away and the water widened more and more, growing threateningly close to the ship, Lup stared out of the window facing the disaster and felt hollowed out inside. There it was. The big tragedy for the year. Or at least one of them, there was still time for things to get even more fucked up. Barry had gotten a message to them just in time to let them know that the light was somewhere out there, right before everything went wrong and they had to listen as Barry yelped in pain mid-sentence and Lucretia screamed in the background, followed by the thunderous sound of some unseen destructive chaos closing in around them before the stone flickered out and communication was cut off. 

 

They had to run away. They couldn’t go after the light with the way things were, they couldn’t try to find Barry and Lucretia. They just had to get the ship off of the ground before the spreading collapse and seismically propelled waters could reach them. They left everything behind, their new goal for the year being just to survive it.

 

***

 

“Shit. Lucretia…” he didn’t know if she was dead or just blacked out when he saw her. He was trapped in some narrow, dark place underground with his glasses gone, unable to determine the space around him, whether he had any injuries, or even able see his own hands. He was helpless to do anything for her or for himself. 

 

He felt a swiftly rising panic; he was reminded of being trapped in the snow so many years before. He felt claustrophobic and his breathing became shallow and quick. There was only the soft whiteness of the salt immediately around him, and then oppressive darkness filling every space that wasn’t gently tinted white. He just wanted some light, he wanted to be able to see his hands, or even feel any part of himself, see how badly he was injured. And he wanted to not be alone.  

 

He couldn’t tell how far underground he was; he only heard echoing remnants of the sound of crashing water that had been a deafening roar on the surface, and the thousands of confused and angry and sad and desperate voices weren’t exploding in his skull, so he assumed that he must have fallen far underground. He closed his eyes and thought of the ship above, hoping that they were okay, that they were safely away from the disaster spreading across the flatland. He thought about Lucretia and hoped that she was just unconscious from the onslaught of voices, and that maybe she had been able to get up and get away. He thought about anything he could in order to slow his breathing and not lose his composure from being alone in the dark, shaking and unable to see, barely able to move and unsure why. 

 

And then there was a voice in the dark. It gently burrowed into his consciousness, and from the inside of his thoughts, he felt the vision of the same being he had connected with the day before. He could sense the image of it nearby; its thin, light grey arms encircling a jagged bit of broken salt floor, holding itself up from falling further down into the same dark chasm where Barry was stuck. The floating curtains of flesh that draped off of it were dried out and clinging to the surfaces around it. It kept its eyes protected by withdrawing them into the flesh of its gelatinous head. As it fought to slow its breathing in order to live as long as it could outside of the water, it communicated with Barry and it found the thoughts in him that brought him the most calm, so that they could share that calm between them in their moment of mutual crisis. 

 

As his thoughts were combed over, Barry could feel every piece that was selectively plucked from his head, and every thread that was pulled at was tangled with hazy images of Lup. The entire history of his feelings for her unfolded and was laid out before him more clearly than ever. 

  
  


At first, it was a sort of magnetic pull towards her. He felt cautious, scared even. Whatever the feeling was, in those early years he felt sure that it would be easier and better to avoid her than to draw close to her and screw something up. He kept to himself, but then she started to insert herself into his space and his work. She was genuinely interested in what he did and learned everything she could with a voracious appetite for knowledge that he had never seen in anyone. But, he was sure that her appreciation in working with him stemmed from the sole desire of her own growth, to learn what he knew -- she already was everything he wasn’t, and was just taking on the task of knowing everything he knew, too. And then she would be more useful to the crew than he could ever be. But he had some use at least; he was useful to her. He was imparting what he knew onto her, and through him, she added even more to her already vast repertoire. 

Those were the years where he knew that if all he ever accomplished was to give something so important as knowledge to someone like her, that would have been enough. 

 

But then, she joked with him and talked to him about things unrelated to work -- and the first time she had referred to him as her friend, he was shocked and confused. He didn’t know that was something that had been developing the whole time. It had never even been a consideration of his, that they could or would be friends. And then, she started to make him feel silly for having those sorts of thoughts and assumptions. She teasingly showed him the things that she thought were great about him. Initially, he thought they were white lies to make him feel better, or exaggerations of things that were simply okay about him. But eventually, he started to believe her. When he was certain that he was weak and ineffective and a burden, she showed him that that was simply not true. When he was ashamed about breaking down emotionally, she showed him that having such strong feelings was something to be cherished. He had never considered that he deserved respect, and she showed him that he did. 

He had always worried about the way he looked, the way he sounded, the words that he said and how he put them together, the way he presented himself, the way he worked, the way he interacted with others... but then he learned that when he was tired or distracted, he didn’t have to speak perfectly, and that when he was flustered, he didn’t have to fall into a self-effacing cycle. He didn’t have to look any certain way or dress any certain way or do anything other than what felt right for him to do, what he wanted to do, what was best for him, what he genuinely was, his personality; he learned that he was good enough. 

_ He was good enough. _ Good enough to be Lup’s friend. That was… better than he ever thought he would be. He was still scared, still nervous, still unsure of himself sometimes, but how much he had changed was immeasurable. 

He wondered how much better he would have to be to even consider, to even  _ think  _ of being a person who could be good enough for Lup in… more ways. It was an unclimbable peak, but -- if he set that as his goal in life, he would become the best version of himself possible. And he could continue to become a better friend, a better person for her. 

 

But that -- all of that was about the good she had done by being around him, by that first decision that confused him so much, the decision to reach out to him, to be his friend. Those were things that happened by being in her mere presence, things that she did  _ for  _ him; and her doing things for him, making him feel better, be better… that wasn’t why he loved her. 

 

He had never wanted to cry from the joy of seeing someone else happy. But he did with Lup. He had never lost the ability to find his breath just from someone speaking to him. But he lost his breath all of the time around Lup. He never felt a need so strong to spend every bit of time that he possibly could with someone. But he did with Lup. Because… she was --  _ everything. _ She was everything, and he didn’t know why the great expanse of the universe didn’t revolve around her.

 

Her kindness, her softness, her sincerity, her unshakable sense of right and wrong, her convictions, fearlessness, the command she could wield. She was uncrackable, she was powerful, she found interest and beauty in things that no one else he had ever met did. Every world they had visited was better for her having been in it.

She could hug him and melt him just as she could melt anything with her fire, she looked like a sun and her eyes like the core of that sun, emanating the fire that warmed entire worlds. And yet she could also be so calm, funny, sleepy, small and quiet. And even the small, quiet things that she did were breathtaking to watch or be a part of. 

 

And then there was that moment. The development into the era of feelings he had then. He loved her so much that it broke him, every day. There were feelings that he didn’t know how to handle, feelings that were burning coals in his hands that he couldn’t set down, coals that he wanted to draw close to his chest and embrace despite the pain. It was love enough to destroy him, and he would let it. Laying in bed at night, his closed eyes were always met with a stream of slow motion memories; every time she looked at him throughout the day, any time she laughed, her running ahead of him and looking back and smiling at him, at only him, that one certain smile, all of the slow and faded memories from the day, from years before. The empty spaces around her where everything that he couldn’t remember, everything else that didn’t matter, was filled in with warm gold light like a constant halo around her entirety as the movie flickered in his skull and he fell asleep to the memory of her from the day, from every day of every year. 

 

He desperately wanted to take her small hands into his, to be a haven for her, to do anything he could for her, always. To brush his thumbs over the tops of her hands, to look at her, just look at her and watch her be amazing, watch her be  _ her.  _

  
  
  


With everything wonderful and right about loving Lup at the front of his mind, he remembered all of the times that he nearly put pen to paper to write something about her. Whenever he did dip into some creative writing, it was usually something to do with his hobbies or studies, the vast expanse of the universe and its beauty, the endless black velvet skyscape of glittering crystal orbs set on fire -- he once could write about the universe in its beauty and complexity and intrigue for forever but… he had found himself floundering to conjure those images, those words, when he wanted his words to all be for Lup. He had always written about things like cosmic forces and inexplicable truths, but wasn’t she also both of those things? And he wanted desperately to write about her but -- putting that down on paper meant that it could be found, he could be exposed, and worst of all it would be in arguably maybe the creepiest way possible. He imagined her finding something he had written about her and being aghast, her trust and comfort in him crumbling in a second. The thought was so painful that he felt something jerk in his mind and he realized that he had hurt the being near him. 

  
[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/26045771@N06/48790280648/in/dateposted-public/)

 

Barry quieted his thoughts and turned to calm moments; sitting on the couch with her and reading, silently watching the sky with her out on the deck of the ship, working next to her when they were each engrossed in their tasks and merely existing near each other. 

 

Through the rush of water above and the echo of the dark chasm, he heard the familiar sound of the Starblaster climbing in altitude and gaining velocity as it started to speed away -- he knew that they had to make a decision, or rather that Davenport made the decision, to leave. And he remained in the dark, still feeling claustrophobic, still shaking. But he kept his thoughts calm for the being that was stuck with him. And once the being was aware of his predicament, it offered to help Barry enter a state of even deeper calm. And so, with that help, he slept peacefully and barely even noticed when the cave-in worsened and water came rushing down, filling the chasm with icy, churning waves. 

  
  
  
  
  



	37. Til Human Voices Wake Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Thirty Seven

  
  


Davenport grinned, his mustache shifting under the brim of his goggles, his eyebrows raised in exhilaration above, a scarf whipping around his neck in the wind through the open windows of his small, personal airship. He had built it himself over the course of two years in the large space of the defunct barn on the back of his property. It was a year since he completed piloting school and he was living on his own in the country. For work, he gave rides and delivered goods back and forth across the large canyon that separated the small bit of countryside that he called home from the rest of the world. For those runs, he used the ship that he bought when he finished school; it had a powerful, reliable motor, substantial storage space for a ship of its size, and room for up to five passengers. It worked perfectly as an air taxi that could also be used for decent amounts of cargo. It was enough to keep him busy and build up his savings, but not so much that he was kept away from or too tired for his hobbies. He actually found a lot of enjoyment in his job, but on that particular day he was with his favorite ship, the one he had constructed himself with intense care and love over the course of two years on the floor of an emptied out barn in the back of a six acre farm; The Lamprey.

 

He commissioned a local artist to paint The Lamprey, complete with circles of concentric teeth from the nose to the pit door, followed by gill pores and fins. It had turned out better than he had ever hoped; the construction had been faster and easier than he planned. Each aesthetic detail was a sight to behold, each piece of its engine moved smoothly and completed its purpose without error, and the cockpit was the epitome of comfort and sized to perfectly accommodate Davenport and his flying style; close to the wheel, eyes level with the dead center of the windshield, side windows open. 

 

Looking down at the rooftops with chimneys billowing smoke, down on the green fields with sprinklers and machinery moving in slow motion, down on the people and animals miniaturized and fading into small dots, Davenport accelerated and climbed in altitude. It was the most peaceful he had ever felt, alone in his small ship with a wind-battered face and everything and everyone else relegated to the world below. He was the only ship in the sky and he couldn’t have been happier.

 

Heavy fog covered everything that was on the other side of the circular canyon that surrounded his corner of the world; it was like nothing else existed. It was just him, the sky, his ship, and the small bit of country resting atop a piece of land broken off from the rest of existence. Everything was perfect. 

 

***

 

Merle relaxed in the center of his garden, all bursting with verdant green leaves hiding clusters of ripe fruits, stalks ending in spiky blooms of orange, and layered ruffled red and pink flowers that dotted the vines hanging in curtains from the tree branches. He had an hour before worshippers showed up, and he would just need to hop down a few stairs to the stone temple wrapped in creeping green tendrils and kept cool by the shade of tall ancient trees. There, he would spend the better half of the lazy evening giving a sermon followed by hymns and ending with eating and drinking and dancing; the perfect way to honor his god, Pan. 

 

The small jungle he was living in was separated into levels; on a large, flat and circular rock at the top was where he had his hut. It was modest, but it had everything he could ever want or need. And besides, he spent most of his time outside of it anyways. The outdoors was more his home than anything, and with the constant agreeable temperature, the abundance of fruit and vegetables to be foraged, the clear pool in the hidden grove behind his home, and the ever changing, beautiful songs of the vast variety of colorful birds, there couldn’t have been a better home. 

 

The second level was the garden where he was currently relaxing, bordered by carved wooden columns that supported several hammocks between them for visitors to enjoy. The stone retaining walls were overtaken by deep green moss that grew in globular patches and small yellow flowers that grew throughout the cracks. On the ledge below was the temple that he had built with the help of his fellow worshippers. They had grown so close as they put together the place of worship, piece by piece, with their bare hands. He had no shortage of friends and most of his days were spent either picnicking with them, dancing, feasting, or luxuriating in the gardens. 

 

He may have been a bit bias, but in his opinion Pan was the best god to be a follower of. Merriment and artistry was encouraged, as was connecting with the most beautiful parts of nature. It was a religion of self expression through all art forms, togetherness with others, and just… happiness. In the face of suffering, the face of adversities and turmoil, the goal was always to seek out and find joy in the small glimpses of light throughout the darkness. It wasn’t about ignoring suffering or pretending that evil didn’t exist, and it wasn’t about being naive; it was about finding strength in the ability to seek out that light in the dark, even if the spots of light were few and far between and even if one felt consumed by the bleakness of things. It was about lifting up those around you and finding joy in their happiness, even if finding your own joy was difficult or near impossible at the time. It was sharing, it was support, it was being helpful and kind. But, where he was, he was lucky enough to be far from any darkness and free of any misery. Everything there was peaceful, the people he was with were all happy and supported each other. They were gifted with plenty and they all delighted in their unique artistic specialities that they all shared with each other. It was a community built on love and respect and shared beliefs and he had built that community up from the ground himself; he was immensely proud. Everything was perfect. 

 

***

 

Magnus threw the stick for maybe the thirtieth time that day, and just like each time before, the brown and gray dog that came up to about his mid-thigh zoomed after it with just as much enthusiasm as the first time. Its tongue lolled out of his mouth as it ran and Magnus laughed at the sight. When it returned with the stick, it was covered in drool, but he didn’t mind. The dog allowed him to take the stick back and he pat its head lovingly. But then he realized that wasn’t enough and he dropped to his knees and ruffled its ears and hugged its neck and the dog gave that full bodied wiggle that always made him laugh. 

 

Magnus walked home from the park, towards the sunset, his body limber and tired from a full day of running and throwing and rolling around with his best friend. As amazing as the day had been, he couldn’t wait to get home -- playing with his dog, being outside, exercising all day, making new friends at the park; those were all his  _ second _ favorite things. His absolute favorite thing, the thing that he valued above everything else, was to be with her. 

 

She was sitting in her favorite chair on the porch when he walked up the stone path to the home that they shared together, reading the book that she had been working her way through for the last couple of days. She was an avid reader and he loved that about her; he loved everything about her. She was smart and tough and kind and loved animals maybe even more than he did, if that was even possible. And, she called him out on his shit and he didn’t mind; she was always right and he always grew from listening to her. 

 

They never tired of each other’s company; they could talk for hours on end or they could sit in comfortable silence with each other. It wasn’t uncommon for them to sit at the base of the tree in their backyard, her in front of him and leaning back with a book in her hands, and him idly playing with her hair with one hand, his other arm wrapped around her. The amount of lazy afternoons where he had fallen asleep that way were innumerable, and he knew that there would be countless more to come. He couldn’t see her face and he didn’t know her name, but that was fine. He was happy and he knew that she was happy, and that was all that he needed. Everything was perfect. 

 

***

 

Lying on their backs on the deck of the Starblaster, Lup and Barry were hand in hand as they looked up at the stars. He wasn’t sure how long they had been that way, but it could never be long enough. 

 

Lup let go of his hand and turned over onto her stomach. She propped herself up on her elbow and angled herself so that her face was hovering over Barry’s. She curled a finger through his hair and stroked along his ear. He could feel his face burning as he became lost in the look she was giving him, looking down at him, the stars and endless black space behind her. He felt like he was staring into his eternity, the beginning and the end of his life, replaying thousands of times but always slowing down in the middle, in the part with Lup, the only part that mattered. Everything else spun by so fast that it was impossible to even see what happened. But that one evening, that indeterminate amount of time spent lying on their backs on the deck of the Starblaster looking at the stars before she turned over and started to stare deeply, wantingly into his eyes, begging to be recognized, begging to have that look returned; that scene played over and over in slow motion before all of the rest zipped past again. 

 

She twirled a bit of his hair around her finger before she let her hand fall from his head down to his cheek where she settled her palm against the curve of his face. Her eyes looked hazy, barely focusing, falling somewhere deep into his eyes. They tried to sense what the other was feeling; searching, pleading, is this okay is this okay is this okay. As she paused with her palm on his cheek, her face just a couple of inches over his, eyes barely open and melting into him, he felt his hand at his side twitch, and he knew that if he moved his hand to meet the arm that she was starting to put over him, that she would fall forward those last couple of inches and he would know and she would know and they would both finally know. As she arched her arm around him from the left, he raised his right arm to run along hers as it traveled over him. Her face came closer and she moved her eyes to look down at his lips for just a second before looking back up to meet his gaze again. She moved forward slightly and he could feel the heat of his face and the heat of her face combining as their lips almost touched. But then there was sharpness and numbness all at once, originating in his right arm before spreading throughout his body and then into the environment around him. The sound of electric buzzing grew in volume until he could feel the sound in his teeth. His body froze and the buzzing was everywhere, it was sight sound taste touch, everything was electric and his body vibrated so violently that he felt like he was dissolving. All of the warmth left, and the vision of Lup in front of him with the stars behind her dissipated and was sucked like dust into a black vacuous hole, and him along with it. 

 

He floated voiceless, bodiless, and sightless in the dark. And then he heard singing. 

…

 

Barry woke up, his eyes squinting into the stream of sunlight pouring through the small gap in the shutter that didn’t get quite closed all of the way. He used to have such a consistent nightly ritual; for the longest time, it was like one fluid movement when he would come into the room and slide the shutter closed before turning to open his top drawer to change and then pulling the sheets back, hitting the light, and then bed. But there he was, two drawers partially open, the shutter not all the way closed, half of the sheets kicked off of the bed. And the best part of all of the chaos -- Lup’s legs tangled up in his, their arms wrapped around each other, their bodies twisted up as close to one person as they could be. They had been like that all night. He nuzzled his face against the top of her head and heard her murmur something under her breath as she slowly woke up. 

 

He was so happy; everything was finally over, but for all of them it was like life had just started. They found a world to call home, but they had grown so close to each other and so attached to the comfort of the ship that they had all elected to stay together with the ship as their permanent living space. They stayed there with the same dining table where they had shared countless meals and conversations, the same couches where they had laughed and cried and held each other, the same kitchen where Lup and Taako cooked mind blowing food for their family -- the kitchen where so long ago, Lup used to sometimes catch Barry early in the morning, bleary eyed and thirsty. They had a whole world to roam and explore, and they often did, but in the end they were still a family, a family that was constant, unchanging, and that made up a home together. And, they had found out that even though they were finally able to stay somewhere for longer than a year, the bond engine was still able to give them the gift of being immortal and unaging. Nothing had changed except that they had won; they had saved everyone and everything and they were able to be happy, to not worry, ever again. 

 

Most importantly and unbelievably of all, he was with Lup. Really, really  _ with  _ her. She was more than his friend, more than his family; she was a piece of his soul, and he had the incredible honor of being a piece of hers. A single day didn’t go by where he didn’t wake up in disbelief at the sight and feel of her next to him, and throughout the day there wasn’t a single minute where he didn’t feel like his heart was on a higher plane of existence, throwing him into a state of constant, pure euphoria. He was always smiling, always laughing with her, always watching her smile; they were both always,  _ always  _ so incredibly happy. 

 

Lup shifted as she started to slowly wake up, but she didn’t loosen her hold on him and their legs remained tangled together. He inhaled, preparing himself to say the words out loud that he hadn’t had enough chances to say yet. Every single time those words left his mouth, he was left with a rush like nothing else he had ever experienced in all of their travels; flying through the stars, watching sunsets on alien planets, conquering the void itself, nothing came close to rivaling the simple act of getting to say those words to Lup. His breath drawn in and his pulse gaining speed, his vocal cords vibrated with the beginning of the first letter. But then he felt an incredible, burning pain in his right arm and it knocked the breath out of him. Everything went grayscale, the warm morning sun was gone, Lup’s golden skin was gone, the light reflecting off of her hair, gone. Everything was dull and gray and gone and gone and gone and it all faded slowly and turned to black while he was still unable to breathe. And then he heard singing. 

 

***

 

With ear plugs in and ear muffs on over that, all underneath air-tight helmets that were hooked up to their breathing apparati, Lup, Lucretia, and Taako signed to each other to communicate what their next steps would be. They were fairly rusty with sign language, having neglected to practice it all that much since they learned it back in their IPRE training specifically in case of atmospheric conditions, or any other occurrences, that would prevent them from being able to speak or hear. Taako pointed to Lucretia and then made a Y shape with his hand, palm down, and motioned it towards her. She nodded and then picked up her stone of farspeech and made her way to the cockpit. She set the stone on the dash in front of her and sat in the pilot’s chair, prepared to leave if she saw the faint glow of the stone come on in two long bursts, followed by one short, a pause, and then three more long. They figured out that tapping against the stone would pick up as noise enough to light up the receiving end, and they brushed up on a few of the codes that they had also grown rusty on, the most important of which being simply ‘Go’. 

 

...

 

Lup and Taako rappelled down the side of the cliff paired with featherfall so that they could lower themselves as quietly as possible with as few steps along the side of the cliff wall as could be managed. They hoped that if they approached the cave opening from the sides, rather than floating down to the small ledge, they could sneak up on each side of the entrance and get the jump on the creature. 

 

Once they were in place, they kept their eyes on each other as they stood on either side of the cave mouth. They knew that they were at least safe from hearing the song that had enraptured Merle, Barry, Davenport and Magnus when they were surveying the land near the coast, causing them to walk off and not return. When it all happened, Taako and Lup had watched curiously from the windows of the ship before catching a few of the notes that permeated through the ship walls. Feeling a strange, overwhelming tugging at their hearts just from the brief, high-pitched notes that had reached their ears, they were instantly alarmed and backed away from the windows. They desperately tried to reach the others on their stones, but no answer ever came. They had no idea if they were still alive, or what had happened to them. They only saw the general direction that they had gone.

 

After multiple excruciatingly careful scouting trips, Taako was the first to spot what he could only assume might have been the origin of the voice, as it was the first and only living thing they had seen. Walking along a sloped path that descended towards the shore, he saw movement on the beach at the bottom of a cliff across from him. Hoisting itself from the water was a creature with the upper half of a human, but at least three times the size of one. Its lower half was like the tail of a fish, but as Taako looked on in abject horror, dozens of long, insectoid legs sprouted from under the creature’s scales, allowing it to scurry vertically up the cliff wall with sickening, unnatural movement and speed. It quickly hid itself away in the yawning mouth of a cave that was bored into the sheer cliffside. 

 

...

 

Jumping in front of the entrance in unison, Taako and Lup easily spotted the creature, skulking in the back of the cave. From the ceiling in a row along the inside of the cave, there were long, dark reddish brown pods with shiny surfaces that looked sticky to the touch. Both of them noticed at once that there were four of the pods and jumped to the conclusion that they could be containing the four people that they were looking for. In that moment of hesitation, the creature in front of them flashed yellow, glowing eyes in their direction and lunged at them from the back of the cave, its vaguely human face splitting open at the jaw to show multiple rows of blood-stained teeth. Lup reacted fast and sent a torrent of flame directed at its center of mass, and Taako unleashed a blast of wind alongside of it, keeping the widening stream of fire from burning up the pods as it whipped past them. The creature was barely phased by the flame, continuing to run at them through the fire, but nothing was a match for Lup’s power and it didn’t make it even halfway towards them before it was blackened and fell to the floor. It was over quick, and she was almost disappointed in a way -- cool-ass battles just weren’t going to be a thing anymore with her magic being able to destroy damn near anything. 

 

With the creature reduced to a barely recognizable, smoking and charred mass on the ground, Lup rushed over to the pods hanging along the side of the cave. Taako took out a dagger and started cutting one of them down and Lup was about to burn away at the bit that connected another pod to the ceiling when she noticed something from the corner of her eye… in the center of the pod, there was an opening, a slit in the side, and there was blood and gristle and a bit of bone sticking out. Lup felt sickness wash over her and hurried to bring down the pod. She traced a fiery finger along the matted material, burning away the sticky casing bit by bit, hoping to find that the person inside was still alive. 

 

***

 

Choking and gasping, Barry jerked awake, struggling to breathe. He sat up in his chair -- he had fallen asleep at his desk while reading and had slumped over in a way that restricted his breathing. He shook his head at himself as he raised a palm to his forehead, the rush of waking up and not being able to breathe filling his skull with an intense pounding. He felt a hand on his shoulder and tilted back to see Lup looking down at him, concerned. All of the tension and the headache left him and he felt warmed from the inside. She smiled at him and gently grabbed at the back of the chair and spun him around to face her. She sat down on his lap in a movement that had become so natural to them, and she circled her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist and settled his chin on her shoulder and they held each other. She pulled back and looked at him and opened her mouth to speak, and he waited and waited and  _ wanted  _ and could  _ feel  _ the anticipation of hearing what he hoped she would say, but the breath that left her open mouth was dry and raspy and she looked like she was choking just trying to get out a single sound, but nothing was coming out, no sound was happening. Then she leaned forward and gripped the sides of his face hard, her hands pressing against him with desperation, and her mouth didn’t move but her voice came in clear and strong “Barry! Barry, please be okay… please wake up.” 

 

Barry’s eyes shot open and there was Lup, her eyes red and watery. He could barely see her through the blurriness of his vision, but he could tell that she was sad and scared. His heart hurt and he knew he needed to make her feel better, to let her know that everything was okay because he because he 

“Lup, I-”

 

Barry raised his hand to meet her cheek as he said the words. He  _ had  _ to caress her face as he said it, so that she would know, she would really know, and then she wouldn’t look scared or sad anymore. But, as he motioned to raise his arm from his side, nothing happened. Lup’s face fell when Barry tried to move, and he could feel his own expression twist into one of horror as he started to sense that something was  _ very  _ wrong. 

 

“Lup, I-” he kept trying to move his right hand to meet her face and it wasn’t working. He raised his left arm and saw it moving just fine from the corner of his vision. Lup clasped a hand over her mouth as she tried not to cry. She gulped and bit her lip and let her hand fall from over her mouth and started to pet Barry’s hair. 

“Shh, shh. Barry, I’m so happy that you’re awake. But you need to rest and -- you need to stay still, please.”

 

Barry felt like something heavy hit his chest. Things were different, things were -- they weren’t how they had just been. She didn’t know. He remembered then that she didn’t  _ actually  _ know. All of that time, those lives that he just felt like he had lived, they were -- they came from somewhere that wasn’t real. He felt undone. 

He relaxed, partially from defeat, but mostly because she had told him to and he would do anything she said. She looked calmer as he stopped trying to move, and she continued to pet his head and look at him lovingly. But she didn’t know. And he couldn’t say it. 

 

As he gained awareness of his surroundings, he noticed that Merle was also standing nearby and that his face was uncharacteristically solemn. But, before he could notice anything else or ask any questions, his eyelids grew suddenly heavy and, after blinking a few times, he fell asleep.

 

…

 

Barry woke up to the sound of talking. 

 

“Are you sure there’s nothing else you can do?” 

 

“I’m sorry kiddo, but I already healed him up as much as I can. Between that and you cauterizing it, I think we’ve done as much as we can. He’s stable and he’ll hopefully not be in a whole lotta pain, but beyond that there’s not much else to do. Healing can’t really -- y’know,  _ grow  _ anything back.” 

 

“I know, I know. I just… fuck, it’s just so disturbing that -- that thing, that it...”

 

“Well. Maybe he doesn’t need to know that part. It’s gonna be okay. Besides, it’s only a couple more months. He’ll get through it just fine, I’ve got faith in him.” 

 

“You’re right. Okay. I’m gonna go bandage him up then, I guess.” 

  
  


Barry saw Lup appear, standing over him. His vision was still blurry, almost like there was a film over his eyes, but he could see that there was a roll of material in her hands and a pained look on her face. He managed a weak smile; whatever it was that was happening, he wanted her to know that he was okay, that she didn’t need to be sad. 

 

“Hey, Lup.” His voice came out in a croak. It felt like he hadn’t spoken in forever.

 

She was happy to hear his voice, but she was still worried for him. She was furious about what happened to him, but there was nothing to take the anger out on. They had killed the thing that hurt him, that trapped the others. There was nothing left to be done. She just needed to get herself together for him. He was going to need her support. She looked down at him, smiling as she unrolled the bandaging. 

 

“Hey, Bear.” 

 

***

 

“Well, I’m ready to take notes if you’re ready to dictate!” Lup was genuinely feeling cheery; Barry was handling everything so well and they were already back in the lab, hard at work. She didn’t follow Merle’s suggestion of not telling him what had happened -- he asked, and so she told him the truth. She knew that he was strong and that he could handle anything. She wasn’t able to help herself from doting on him, though. 

 

He tried, he tried  _ hard  _ to reconcile with what had happened to him. Besides, he wasn’t going to have to live with it forever. But, it wasn’t even so much the missing arm -- that was something that just took time to get used to, and he was in the unique position of not even having enough time to get used to it before it would be back. The part that was upsetting was that a piece of him had been --  _ eaten.  _ He shivered. He just needed to stuff it down, not think about it. It was easy enough to just pretend that it wasn’t even real; he would have his arm back, the planet where it had happened would be gone. He wasn’t even conscious when it happened. It may as well have not been real. 

 

It wasn’t real. 

 

_ It wasn’t real.  _

 

“You spacing out, Bear?” 

 

“Oh uh, yeah, sorry.”

 

Lup leaned over from her chair and set a hand on his knee, her thumb stroking it with gentle circles, giving him goosebumps. 

“There’s nothing to apologize for. You’ve been through a lot.”

 

Barry sighed and his body untensed, though he was still electrified by Lup’s touch. 

“Thank you, Lup. And -- thank you for all of your help. I hope I’m not a burden.” 

 

Lup smirked and playfully shoved his knee before drawing her hand away. “You dork, you had better know that that’s impossible.”  

 

Barry hung his head and laughed. “I know, I know. I just-”

 

“Constantly worry and have to apologize for everything?” 

 

“Hah, yeah. That.” 

He looked up at her, at her gleaming face, and was reminded of his dreams of her, those dreams that had felt like entire lifetimes. As wonderful as they had been, nothing could ever compare to her sitting in front of him, smiling and laughing. Nothing could compare to the  _ real  _ Lup. Even if that Lup wasn’t in love with him. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	38. A Pair of Ragged Claws

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Thirty Eight

  
  
  


Barry and Lup tried not to laugh at the absurdity of their situation; there they were, stuck in a tree house while a pack of wolves, at least a hundred strong, ran through the woods underneath them. The ground was thick with the blur of brown and grey hair. The sounds of heavy panting and  hundreds of padded feet running across the packed dirt overtook the gentle rustle of leaves and melodious bird song that they had just been enjoying on their hike. Lup was sitting in a child-sized chair, her head almost touching the ceiling of the tree house while Barry sat across from her on the floor, a hand over his mouth, trying not to crack up at the look on Lup’s face. 

 

“We look fucking ridiculous in here and I love it,” Lup whispered through giggles under her breath to Barry, who was turning red with suppressed laughter. 

He choked a bit on a laugh after thinking of something - “Lup, I don’t think wolves can climb trees.” 

Lup snorted and her shoulders shook at Barry’s observation. He leaned forward and spoke a little bit louder. 

“I don’t know why we’re trying to be quiet.”

 

Lup leaned forward, too, but continued to whisper.“First, dear, dear Barold. You should know by now that  _ we don’t know shit about what anything can do on any planet.  _ These wolves could fucking fly and shoot lasers from their eyes for all we-,” Lup couldn’t finish her sentence before she dissolved into a fit of giggles and Barry wasn’t able to hold in his laughter anymore. 

The adrenaline had them really riled up; they had started running as soon as they heard the thunderous sound of something approaching them from behind, and they ran until they happened across a tree that had a makeshift ladder nailed to it. After climbing the ladder, they hoisted themselves through the opening at the top and went into hide mode, staying perfectly still and quiet except for the occasional small escape of breath from holding their laughter back. Barry smiled behind his hand seeing the expression of joy on Lup’s face. They had been having so much fun together all day, even though all they did was work - followed by almost getting eaten by a horde of wolves. 

 

***

 

At the start of the year, they landed in a clearing surrounded by patches of forest and several small, but compact, villages. The villages were separated by large plots of farmland that were sunken into the ground and partially filled with water to satiate the thirsty vegetables that they grew there. 

 

The people were gnome-like in their features, but on average stood only a few inches shorter than typical human height. They were hospitable and warm and happy to exchange goods with the crew for help in the fields. Merle decided to wait until maybe the last week of their year before visiting John in favor of building a temple in a central location to all of the villages. Magnus was excited to help; he genuinely enjoyed working on construction each time he had the chance to do so with Merle in prior years. And, he was excited to try and find some way of incorporating one of the few small spells that Barry had taught him; maybe a little ball of light hovering over him so that he could continue to work once it was dark? He would figure out something. 

 

...

 

The crew easily bonded with the locals and on more than one occasion, they stayed in one of the villages for dinner. That night, Lup and Barry lingered with their hosts long after the rest of the crew had returned to the ship. They were wrapped up in conversation with a certain local who was well-traveled and extremely knowledgeable about the widespread flora and fauna. She showed them a book of illustrations, listing plants that could be found in surrounding forests and grasslands and what their individual properties were. They also learned from her that the wolves they had ran from a few days before were harmless, unless they had to defend themselves; then they could actually be quite formidable. They grouped together in an intimidating stampede only to migrate deeper into the forest before the heavy rains started. Much further into the woods, there was a network of connected caves and tunnels where they could keep dry as they hibernated. 

 

After hours of conversation, Lup and Barry finally left the home of their host. They talked as they made their way out of the village, comparing thoughts on what they had learned from their new friend and how they could apply the information to their work. It wasn’t far outside of the border of the small town that they saw someone standing by themselves near the edge of the forest, nervously scanning all around. Barry and Lup glanced at each other, silently asking the other whether they should approach the person. They started walking over to them, without needing to say a word. 

 

“Hey there, you alright?” The person was startled by Lup’s words and gasped as they turned around and looked at them, wide-eyed and frightened. 

 

“Oh -- um, yes, I’m just uh--” even in the limited moonlight, they could see the blush creep over his face as he tripped over his words, looking for something to say to these two people that just walked up and started talking to him. 

 

“Sorry if we scared you…” Barry felt bad for him -- he was pretty sure that he’d had that same look on his own face before. 

 

“No, it’s alright. I’m just… I need to get back soon and I was supposed to give -- someone this letter. But they haven’t shown up.” 

 

Lup’s curiosity was piqued, but she decided not to pry. There was obviously something about the situation that was stressing him out to no end. 

“Who are you waiting for?” 

 

“It’s not important, I just- I have to get back, I can’t stay any longer, umm -- I hate to ask you this, but if you’re not in a hurry, could you maybe see if she shows up soon and give her this? And- and, uh, whenever you have to leave, umm I don’t know… I guess you could put it under that rock over there and I can get it back later? Shit-” he paused and raised a palm to his forehead. “Why didn’t we just agree to leave it there so she could find it? Ah, damn.” 

 

“Yeah, we can take it for you.” Barry extended a hand to take the letter. “Or, um --” Barry looked to Lup, “I didn’t mean to agree for both of us. I can just stay here if you wanted to get back, I know it’s late and-” 

 

“Shh Barry, it’s okay. It’s just a little midnight side quest, I’m game.” They smiled at each other as the letter was stuffed into Barry’s still open hand. He was knocked out of his hypnotic state under Lup’s eyes and looked down at the letter before nodding at the person who smiled gratefully. 

 

“Thank you so much. I’m going to get home. Um, she’ll probably be the only person around here at this time of night, but also she has long hair and always wears dresses, usually a yellow one, so…” he lost himself for a moment after his brief description, then shook his head and waved a hand, “you’ll know when you see her.” 

He turned and broke into a full sprint, back to the village. As soon as he was out of earshot, Lup smiled mischievously at Barry. 

“You wanna read it?” 

 

“Lup! I mean… kind of, yeah, but we shouldn’t, right?” 

 

Lup exhaled. “Ugh, you’re right. But I hate it, and also I don’t like it.”

 

Barry smiled from the corner of his mouth, his shoulders falling a bit as he slowly melted from the inside out because of her playful mood with him. He could get addicted to the feeling, to her smiles and laughs -- or, really it was more like he already had been for years. 

 

“So.” Lup dropped down and sat with her legs flung out in front of her, enjoying the feeling of the grass. “What are we gonna do to pass the time?” 

 

“Hmm.” Barry followed Lup’s lead and sat on the grass across from her. 

 

“We could… guess what’s in the letter?”

 

Lup slumped her head back with a short exhale from her nose. “Nooo, that’ll just make me want to read it  _ so much more.” _

 

“Yeah, that makes sense. What about-”

 

“Ooh!” Lup clasped her hands together enthusiastically. “Guess what I’m thinking about!”

 

Barry laughed. “Wait -- how am I supposed to-”

 

Lup leaned forward and looked at Barry intensely. “See if you can guess what I’m thinking by looking at me.” 

 

“Hah. Shit, alright. Okay let’s see.” Barry leaned forward and looked back at Lup and -- he wanted to play along, but it was  _ so hard  _ looking at her like that and being able to think of literally anything at all. After just a short moment, he was already panicking and frantically searching for anything at all to say, anything to break the silence before he said something stupid or gave himself away somehow. 

 

“Umm -- food?” 

 

Lup leaned back. “Damn, you know me too well, Barold. We had dinner like what, four hours ago? I’m so ready to rummage through the pantry when we get back.” 

 

Barry chuckled. “I don’t know how you eat so much. It’s cute.” Barry blushed -- he didn’t mean to say that. He swallowed, tried not to react, tried to act like he meant to say that and that it was fine, it was just a regular compliment, it was  _ normal and fine and- _

 

Lup acted casual, but her heart was doing flips.  _ Cute?  _ \-- gods…  _ fuck... _

 

And then they noticed a figure approaching; one with a yellow dress and long hair. The figure paused as soon as they caught sight of Lup and Barr; they looked like they were about to turn and flee before Lup called out to them. 

“It’s okay, we’ve got your letter! He, uh — shit we didn’t get his name. But it’s coolsies, I swear.”

 

The person hesitated. “Where did he go?” The voice coming from the figure illuminated by moonlight was clear and warm, like a deep note on a woodwind instrument. 

 

Barry pointed towards the village behind them. “He seemed like he was in a rush.”

 

“Oh.” The figure shrank, hanging their head and dropping their shoulders. 

 

“But, he seemed really desperate to get you this letter.” Lup held the folded piece of paper out, but the figure didn’t move. “Uh… we can just leave it here and -- take off I guess?” She laid the letter down on the rock behind her, then tugged at Barry’s sleeve as she started to walk off.

They took the long way around the base of the small hill, giving the person space since they seemed so cautious. They didn’t move for the letter and they didn’t take their eyes off of Barry and Lup as they left. 

 

***

 

Lup sat on the edge of the short wall that enclosed the small indoor garden in the sunroom of the Starblaster and stared out the window at the heavy curtains of rain falling over the valley. The sound of thunder in the distance was calming; it made it feel like danger was far, far away from them. 

 

She enjoyed the peaceful feeling of watching the rain and listening as it hit against the ceiling window above her. She realized that the top of the ledge where she was sitting was wide enough to lay on, so she turned over and lied down and watched the rain falling towards her through the skylight. She let her hand fall into the garden bed next to her and started idly playing with the dirt. 

 

She thought about the letter that her and Barry had delivered the day before. She was still curious about what was in it… and honestly, she  _ would  _ have peeked if Barry hadn’t been there. But, she was pretty sure that she already knew what the whole exchange was about at its core; they were in love. There was some obstacle probably, thus the meeting at night, the stress the man was under and the need to hurry back, the extreme cautiousness of the woman receiving the letter. There was something keeping them apart, but she was sure that they at least both knew that they loved each other. She felt jealous, just for a moment, before she reprimanded herself. That wasn’t fair, to be jealous of them. Besides, if she really wanted to, she could just go walk up to Barry and communicate her feelings to him -- but it was different. They didn’t live on an entire planet. They didn’t have the room to escape if things didn’t go well. If it was the wrong move, they wouldn’t be able to have space from each other while the awkwardness died down, while the healing took place. They wouldn’t be able to have breathing room, to recover, and to then reunite later as friends. But she was so sure, so so sure, that no matter what happened, she would never want time away from him. Even if her heart  _ was  _ broken, she would still want to see him every day. How could she not? 

 

The sound of the rain, the grey and wet sky, the miles of valley spread out around them, dotted by villages and bordered by forests -- it all made her feel so cozy. She wanted to spend all day inside, lying around, wearing a sweater or wrapped in a blanket, drinking something warm. All of those things would be  _ so  _ good to do with Barry. He was so warm and comfortable, and she badly wanted to curl up with him just then. Him, a blanket and a book and nothing else to do, nothing to worry about. She wanted to have the luxury of being able to focus entirely on being in the moment with someone she loved, knowing that she was loved back. But, that was not going to happen right then, no matter how much as she wanted it to. So, she decided to continue to laze by the garden alone, just her and the rain. She turned her thoughts inward, to herself, to being present and focusing on the feeling of dirt between her fingers, the lull of the consistent beating of rain against the glass above, the steadiness of her breathing.

  
  


She sat back up and looked out the window. And she saw Barry outside of the ship, wearing a raincoat and retrieving the containers he had left out in various spots for collecting rain. They found out that the village got a large part of their drinking water from rain collection and he wanted to see if they could do the same. He had also said that he was ‘just curious’ about its mineral and bacterial contents and whatever else he could find. Of course he was curious. He was curious about everything, and it drove Lup crazy because she loved that about him so much. How in the hell was watching him walk around in the rain, picking up jars, making her long for him even more? It was almost irritating how he could do next to nothing and she would melt over it. And then when he did impressive things? Amazing things? Or even something like getting lost talking aimlessly about what microbes were capable of living in space -- in those moments, it was like nothing else existed. 

Becoming utterly lost in his words, in the sound of his voice -- that might have been sweet on their home planet. But in their situation, it was irresponsible. Possibly even dangerous. She needed to get her head straight.

 

***

 

“Oh hey, it’s letter guy!” 

Lup waved as she, Barry and Taako walked through the same village they had visited the day before. They were still  trying to dig up whatever information they could before their next search for the light, and while the villagers did have a lot of useful things to share, the extent of their knowledge was limited to a fairly small area. They were going to just have to start making hops soon, but the whole crew was pretty set on always returning to the same spot; they knew that it was safe there and they all felt comfortable. Besides, Merle was only maybe halfway through the construction of his temple. 

 

The three of them had just left the small market area of the town and were heading back to the ship when the person that Barry and Lup had met the night before walked past them. They pointed him out and waved him over; they were both still curious to know what the whole situation was about. Especially Lup. 

 

“Hey! So we got your letter to, um -- what did you say her name was again?”

 

The young man looked over all three of them before answering her. “I never said what her name was.” 

 

Lup was disappointed, but not really surprised that her question didn’t work. But, of all of the details, that arguably was the least important. 

“Okay then, what’s  _ your  _ name?”

 

“It’s, uhhh… it’s Moor.” 

 

“That sounded like a lie.” Taako was still thumbing through the recipe book he had picked up and was only vaguely interested in whatever was happening. 

 

“No, that’s what it is! I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell you!”

 

Lup waved dismissively in Taako’s direction. “Ignore him. Anyways, look. Whatever either of your names are, if you wanna tell us what’s going on, maybe we could help? It seems like there’s… something up with the two of you?”

 

Moor’s face tightened; he looked halfway between being deep in thought and being angry. He crossed his arms and turned away from them, but didn’t leave, and was silent for a few moments. 

 

“Maybe you could. But I can’t talk about it here. You can meet me in the same spot, later.”

 

“Alright, but when exactly?” Barry was having trouble making any sense out of Moor’s reaction to them. 

 

“Just -- later, okay?” Moor turned heel and walked off at a hurried pace without another word.

 

“Who was that ray of sunshine?” Taako continued to dog-ear pages as he spoke, and didn’t look up from his book. 

 

Lup shook her head, confused. “Just some dude we met the other night. He had us deliver a letter for him.” 

 

Taako finally looked up, suddenly intrigued. “Ooh, what did it say?” 

 

Lup placed her hands on her hips. “I love how you just assume that I read it!”

 

“Lup. There is  _ no  _ way that you didn’t read it.” Taako whipped his head around to look at Barry, who was silent during the exchange. “Did -- are you -- are you being a good influence on my sister? Was this because of  _ you  _ that I can’t get any hot goss? Gods, you’re the worst, Barold.”

 

Barry just laughed at Taako’s jabbing and shrugged his shoulders. Taako pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at Barry, almost disappointed that he wasn’t so easily flustered anymore. He tucked his book under his arm and started to walk off. 

“Well, you two have fun sleuthing, or whatever. I’m gonna go cook-” he stopped and took the book back into his hands, opening it up to one of the pages he had marked, “-charred guh-spel-o-crup-- shit, why does this place have such weird ass names for food? I’m gonna go cook whatever the hell this thing is called for dinner, I’ll smell ya both later.” 

 

***

 

“So… this is around when we saw him the last time, right?”

 

“Yeah, think so.” Barry shifted; his leg was starting to go numb from the way he was positioned sitting on the grass. But there was no way that he could move completely; Lup was sitting right next to him as they waited while watching the moon and talking. They were nearly shoulder to shoulder. He felt annoyed at himself -- was he seriously not going to move, even though his leg was going numb, just because their shoulders and the sides of their legs were only a couple inches apart? It was ridiculous,  _ he  _ was ridiculous. But, he was damn near always ridiculous around her. He said and did and thought things that he had never before done in his life, and a good portion of those things made no sense. Like not wanting to move despite being uncomfortable, just because they were  _ kind of  _ close to each other.

He realized that if he continued to let his leg go numb, when they eventually got up there was a very good chance that he would fall on his face, or he would be limping and she would of course ask why. He re-positioned himself, having to scoot a bit away so that he could get his leg moved in a way that would hopefully bring feeling back to it. And of course, Lup noticed.

 

“Uncomfy? We can move somewhere else, or walk around instead if you want.” 

 

“Oh, no, I’m fine. Just got old man bones, hah.” 

 

Lup snickered. “Hey, you be nice to my friend Barold’s bones, they’ve never done anything wrong.” 

 

“What about when my leg broke from slipping --  _ maybe  _ a couple of feet when that bridge broke? Shit… that was forever ago, huh?”

 

Lup looked thoughtfully off into the distance. “Wow, yeah. I didn’t even remember that. Huh. Well, fuck your bones then, I guess.” 

 

Lup and Barry didn’t hear Moor approaching them over their laughter. He was just suddenly in front of them. Moor held up a forefinger, asking them to be quiet, and then motioned for them to follow him to the small hill, closer to the border of the forest. 

 

They only barely reached the base of the hill when they saw the figure in the yellow dress from before. She stopped short when she noticed Lup and Barry, but upon seeing Moor, she approached without hesitation. As she came closer, Barry and Lup noticed that her dress and hair seemed to be caught in a wind that wasn’t present, and there was a soft amber glow to her eyes. She walked barefoot across the grass, looking as if she were barely touching the ground as she rushed her way into Moor’s arms. He held on to her tightly, closing his eyes and nuzzling his head into the hair that spilled over her shoulders. Once he let her go he inhaled deeply, seeming to need to catch his breath after hugging her. He gestured with an open palm over to Lup and Barry and introduced them to her. She stared at them with an unsettling intensity, her face still and expressionless. She leaned over to whisper something into Moor’s ear. 

“No, I’m -- I’m at least  _ pretty  _ sure that they’re safe.” Moor looked worried, as if he just realized that maybe what was happening was all a very bad idea. But then, he furrowed his brow and a determined expression crept over his face. He looked up at Barry and Lup.

“You said that you wanted to help.”

 

Lup nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, if there’s something that we can do, we would be happy to.” She meant what she said, but above everything else, she just really  _ really  _ wanted to finally know what the hell was going on. 

 

“Well…” Moor took in a deep breath and looked back over to the woman, seeming to be seeking her approval. He somehow was able to read a message from her expressionless face and he smiled, turning back to Lup and Barry. “This is Aede. And she’s a, um -- she’s not super fond of the word, but people here call her a witch.” 

 

Lup’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. That was not at all what she was expecting, but she fucking loved it. 

“I mean, hell yeah that’s pretty cool. Nothing wrong with that.” Barry nodded along with Lup.

 

Moor looked pleased, albeit a little shocked. “Okay, great! Yeah, uh, the others, they aren’t really happy with that -- whole thing. She can’t even go into the village, otherwise… well, we’re not totally sure what might happen. Part of what they all think about witches is that they uh, enchant or uh, ‘magically influence’ people to love them. I guess in order to control them. So, no one is going to believe that I actually -- that I really do love her.”

 

Barry couldn’t wrap his head around staying in a place where you weren’t allowed to be with someone that you loved. “So… if I may ask, why do you stay here, then? In the village?” 

 

“I have family here that I am very close to. They would be suspicious if I was gone for any amount of time at all, really. If I were gone for even a day, they would come looking for me. And there’s no good excuse I could have for being gone. Everything that we need, everything that we’ve had and have lived for since we were born, it’s all in our village.”

 

Barry frowned and pressed a crooked finger to his lips, trying to think of something. He couldn’t imagine being in their position; he already would do anything to stay near Lup, but gods… if she actually loved him back? There would be  _ nothing  _ in any world or plane of existence that could stop him from being with her. 

“What if we- so, um… we’ve been helping with a lot of things here and doing work for people in the village. What if you used us as an excuse? You could say that we asked you to do some work for us. Then you could get away from the village for a while.” 

 

Moor excitedly looked to Aede and gathered up her hands and squeezed them. “We could try that, yeah!” 

 

Lup looked at Barry, her face gleeful. She loved that he was on the same page, that he wanted to help, that he came up with an idea so fast. She loved that he cared about other people, that he was always so willing to go out of his way. She loved him.

 

***

 

Over the next several weeks on random days, Moor would come knocking at the door of the Starblaster to let Barry or Lup know that he was going into the woods to see Aede. Just in case anyone came looking for him, he wanted to make sure that they knew to be ready with an excuse. They made the sacrifice of supplying him with whatever random goods they could; things that they had no real use for or that had been in storage for a long while. That way, he could justify his absences while he was ‘working’ for them. 

 

It was soon time for the crew to make another jump on their continued search for the light. They would be flying and stopping for a couple of days, adding to their hand drawn map and keeping track of what territory they covered. A few hours before they were going to leave, Lup had an idea. She grabbed Barry to go with her to find Moor. If they were going to be gone for a few days -- maybe he could be ‘gone’ as well. 

 

***

 

Flying back towards the villages, the crew was happy to know that they weren’t going to have to leave again -- they had found the light. It was well hidden in a bowl-shaped recess in the middle of a circle of mountainous spines in a remote area; a landmark that Lup and Barry’s friend had mentioned to them. There was nothing around it, nothing that was affected, nothing terrible. They were able to scoop it up, shove it in a box in the lab for later, and head back. They were feeling accomplished and relieved but, as Davenport circled over the clearing by the villages, Lup stared out the window and saw something alarming below. There was a heavy cloud of billowing smoke coming from a spot in the woods. As soon as they landed, Barry, Lup, Taako and Magnus went rushing down the ramp of the ship and towards the forest. If there was anything that they could do to keep the whole place from going up in flames, they had to at least try. 

 

They walked through the smoke-filled forest with Taako manipulating the wind to clear the air around them as they made their way towards the source. As they drew closer, the scene that began to unfold itself was disturbing. First, they came across a single villager on the ground, the handle of a blood covered rake lying across their limp hand. They couldn’t tell if the it was one of the people that they knew because the face was bloodied and torn beyond recognition. And then there were more, all dead, all carrying various improvised weapons, clubs and sharpened chair legs and farm tools. They had all been attacked by something that left them with what looked like claw marks along the entire length of their torsos, shredding their clothes and tearing them open. And then they noticed that some of the bodies held extinguished torches -- but the fallen torches weren’t the source of the fire. They saw the orange glow of flames not far ahead of them, obscured by trees and thick rolling waves of smoke. They entered a clearing, and in the center was a small structure, something like a hut or tiny cottage, that was completely consumed in flames. Scattered on the ground, all around the fire, were more bodies. And Lup noticed one in particular. 

 

“No no no no.” Lup’s voice quavered as she ran through the smoke and knelt at the side of one of the only bodies that still had an intact face -- it was Moor. But he was… different. He was larger, animal-like, and covered in grey and brown hair. He seemed to be shrinking slowly as they watched, the hair fading, his face becoming more like the soft and worried face of the young man they had gotten to know. But they couldn’t dwell on that, yet. They had to control the fire first, and extinguish it if possible. Taako got to work, expanding the water that Magnus had carried over in heavy containers and swirling it around the flames from all sides. 

 

...

 

With the fire out they stood there, dour and motionless, trying to process the scene. Then, they saw something moving around in the brush behind the trees that circled the small clearing. They stayed still, quiet, and watched as a small wolf pup emerged from the bushes. It seemed to be staring at the smoldering pile of what used to be the hut. It whimpered and lowered its head, but then it caught sight of them. At once, it bolted back into the brush, and they heard it hurry away until they couldn’t hear it anymore.

 

Lup turned to Barry. “I thought all of the wolves were hibernating at the other end of the forest?” 

 

They both stared off into the woods in the direction of the frightened animal. Everyone was tired and dirty and mystified. It was all too much. But, there was obviously more. 

 

***

 

Taako and Magnus headed back to the ship when Barry and Lup decided to go further into the woods to pursue the animal. Taako figured he had already helped how he could; the rest was all just part of Lup and Barry’s ongoing mysterious doings that they had gotten wrapped up in, and he was too tired to be interested. But, the two of them; whenever they got really into something, they were both like machines, and seemed perfectly fine going past their comfort zones and pushing through their exhaustion. That wasn’t for Taako though, so he was back on the ship, laid out on the couch along with the equally exhausted Magnus. 

 

Meanwhile, out in the woods, Barry and Lup tracked the scared animal until the sun started to rise. They ended up finding themselves somewhere that they didn’t expect; back at the tree house that they had been stuck in at the beginning of the year. And inside, they found something that they didn’t expect even more -- a child, cowering in the corner, crying. A child that had been kept a secret. They spent their morning in a way that they definitely would not have predicted; sitting on either side of a terrified little boy, no more than eight years old, both holding on to him, consoling him over his dead parents. 

 

***

 

It was another day of heavy rain and everyone was indoors. Magnus and Merle didn’t go out to work on the temple and instead, Magnus was bothering Taako in the kitchen and Merle was playing a card game with Davenport. Lucretia had pulled a chair over to the window so that she could watch the rain while she drank her tea. 

 

In the lab, Barry was synthesizing an antibacterial compound from a local plant and was early in the process, using the high pressure boiler to dissolve a handful of stems where the compound was derived from. Lup sat a ways down the counter from him with Fen sitting on her lap. Barry finished tending to the settings of the boiler and was able to turn his attention to them, sliding over a couple of beakers of plain water. He then rummaged through the contents of a box that was to the side of his work area and pulled out some test strips that he handed to Lup. 

 

“Oh nice, you found them! Okay cool, so check it out little man, grab these-” Lup handed Fen a couple of the strips and instructed him on how to test the acidity levels of the beakers of water they had collected from different sources that sat in front of them. 

 

“Nice! This one looks like it’ll be the better one for the crystals. So, let’s ask Barry for the next part…”

 

“I think all we need now is to start warming it up, and then we can add the alum.” Barry couldn’t stop smiling as he took the beaker of water from Lup and turned on the bunsen burner. 

 

“Thank you, Barry!” Fen kicked his feet and jumped off of Lup’s lap. She leaned over to him and ruffled his hair. 

 

“You wanna go bug Taako and see if he can get you some alum from the kitchen?”

 

Fen nodded enthusiastically and ran off to the kitchen. Lup looked at Barry, the smile on her face unable to be contained. 

 

“This is pretty fun, huh?” 

 

“Yeah! I haven’t done this kind of stuff since I was a kid, let’s see -- around seventy years ago, now?” 

 

“Pfft, you act like that’s a long time.” Lup snickered at Barry and he playfully pushed the arm of her chair while looking down and laughing, sending her rolling away a couple of inches. It was something new that had started between them, a way of responding to being teased that was softer - and more representative of their friendship - than the habit she had developed with Taako of arm-punching. 

... 

 

Lup sat outside on one of the folding chairs and watched Barry with Fen, showing him how to safely catch bugs without hurting them and then putting them in little jars with air holes for studying. He laughed as Fen gasped in surprise and then let out a delighted squeal at seeing a mantid that they had put in a jar extend out large, fan-like wings to display a shimmering green and gold pattern. 

  
  


With a tray full of sample jars, Barry walked over to where Lup sat while Magnus lifted Fen up to help him climb into a tree. He sat next to Lup in one of the folding chairs that they had brought down so that they could spend time in the unseasonal sun. Lup grinned from under her large brimmed hat.

 

“Man, he’s cute.” 

 

Barry nodded. “Yeah, and really smart.” 

 

“Of course that would be the part you would care about.” Lup gently nudged Barry’s shoulder and he chuckled. 

 

“And of course you would care about the cute part.”

 

Lup feigned offense with a gasp and a hand on her chest. “You make it sound like I’m shallow!” 

 

Rather than panicking as he may have once done, Barry responded calmly to Lup; but he didn’t really think out what he was saying, first. 

“Hah, no of course not... You’re the smartest person I know.” 

 

Barry and Lup both casually looked in opposite directions from each other, hiding the fact that they were blushing and smiling. Lup happened to end up looking over in Taako’s direction, who was lounging under a tree nearby. He caught Lup’s eye and pointed to his mouth and mimed that he was gagging. Lup stealthily flipped him off before returning her attention to Barry. They changed their topic of conversation to work, and not long after, it started to pour rain without warning. Taako ran inside, but Barry and Lup didn’t move, just laughed and figured that they were already so drenched they might as well just stay.

 

Magnus ran by with Fen on his shoulders, both of them yelling unintelligibly, soaked in rain. Lup was warmed by the sight -- but the darkness looming over it all wouldn’t go away. How could it? Every minute that went by was one minute closer to them leaving. She looked over at Barry, and she felt sure that he was thinking the same thing. It was dangerous, getting attached. They were only hurting themselves. Still, they couldn’t stop. 

 

…

 

Barry had volunteered himself for sleeping on the couch so that Fen could have his bed. The kid could sleep for forever and sometimes Lup would go into the room to wake him for breakfast, but end up napping alongside him for a little while first. 

 

One morning, Lup and Barry went together to wake up Fen. They paused for a moment and watched the child sleeping, huddled in Barry’s blankets and holding onto a pillow. It was so unfair. His parents died, and they were going to have to leave him, too. And they weren’t even sure yet where they would take him when they had to go. They had the light, but still -- the Hunger would at least temporarily assault the planet, sending down shadowy figures through its pillars before it realized that the light wasn’t there, but instead with them. How would they keep him safe until then? 

 

“Barry, what are we going to do when…” 

 

“I know. I’ve been thinking about it. A lot. Constantly, if I’m gonna be honest.” Barry hung his head, looking away from the bed. “What can we do except just try to take him to wherever is the safest. Find someone who can take care of them when we -- when we have to leave.” 

 

Lup nodded her head absentmindedly. Her thoughts fled far away, trying to think of something, anything. They knew the people in the villages weren’t safe. They had moved the ship away and never visited again after the fire. Anyone that saw what Fen could change into, that saw that he was different -- they might be afraid of him, they might hurt him. How could they possibly know who wouldn’t hurt him but would instead care for him, like they did? 

 

“Oh shit...” Lup grabbed Barry’s shoulder and her eyes lit up as she looked at him. 

 

“What about the caves?”

 

Barry’s eyes widened. “The wolves?” 

 

“Yeah… the wolves.”   
  


Barry scratched at his chin, thinking. “Shit. I guess we could ask him. We could -- go there, see if it’s okay? How they act?” 

 

Lup smiled wide and her eyes showed the deep relief that she felt. Who could say whether that would work or not, whether that was even an okay thing or not. But, at least they had  _ something  _ to try. 

 

***

 

“You ready for this, team?” 

 

“Let’s fucking do it.” 

 

“Going down swinging!” 

 

Lup, Barry and Magnus braced themselves at the sight of black tar leaking from the sky as the Hunger broke it open and darkened everything. They stood in front of the yawning mouths of a series of caves chiseled into the side of a short, sprawling mountainscape. Beside them were hundreds of wolves, and there were even more lining the insides of the caves, dead set on letting nothing pass by them. Lup’s heart felt like it was flying. Finding good in a world where others had turned out… so bad; it was comforting, it was a relief, it made her feel hopeful. She was ready to fight with absolutely everything in her, until she was spent. And, with her family beside her, she did -- she absolutely destroyed wave upon wave of shadowy, amorphous figures. Barry did so well, too; he put every single offensive spell in his arsenal to use in the most natural and fluid way, in a way that would have made Taako proud. Magnus decimated piles of shadows, slicing them in half with a sword, a bold recklessness, and an unrivaled determination borne entirely by love. 

 

...

 

Once they were done being able to fight and Magnus was dead, Barry and Lup were still dying. Knocked to the ground, lying in horrible pain, they knew at least it would be over soon. They smiled through the pain and the tears they cried were not from the agony but from the fact that they had kept him safe, they won. As they saw the Hunger’s tendrils whip away and coil themselves back into the inky mass and veer into the direction of the ship, they knew they had done it. Fen was far back in the network of caves with hordes of snarling wolves blocking the entrances. Others who didn’t make it while fighting alongside the three were dead on the ground. The animals had ended up being the kinder population on the planet, and Lup, Barry and Magnus were especially saddened that they hadn’t gotten to know them better. But it was over, it was done, and everything was going to be okay. Fen was going to be okay. That was all that mattered. 

***

On board the Starblaster, Taako looked down at the world as it became smaller and smaller. Lup and Barry and Magnus were still down there, and in just a couple of minutes, they would be back on the ship.  And then just a bit after that, depending on how long it took Davenport to find them a landing spot, they would be on an entirely different planet with no idea of what would be there, how anything would work, whether there was food or water, friends or hostile hordes. They didn’t know who would die, who would experience some emotional breakdown, who would be the saddest by the end of the year. 

Sometimes, he would almost forget for a minute. He would be adjusting, feeling like it was a new place to be settled, like it was just where he was living. But then reality would come back and he’d remember that he would have to learn a whole new place the next year, that nothing was permanent, that learning about that planet had no purpose other than to be forgotten. They were on their way to another pointless year where nothing they learned would have any bearing on anything, would never mean anything ever again. It was so rare for them to learn something that carried over. The only thing it felt like he had real control over, that was of actual use to him, was his mastery of his magical skills. If he could do nothing else, if nothing else mattered, he could at least have control over himself in that way. 

 

He thought again about his sister on the ground below, fighting alongside Barry and Magnus, and he reflected on their year. 

Lup and Barry had basically raised a child together and played house for over half of the year. And they were still as clueless as ever.  _ And  _ they were going to find some way in the next year to not read into what they had done together and to still have no fucking clue about anything. To excuse it, to write it off as being no big deal. Taako tended to not think about it much, but when he did, it bewildered him. He sometimes even forgot that they weren’t together, that they were still being fools. 

He was ripped away from his musings by the familiar strings of white light that placed him back into the common room with everyone else. His hair changed, his skin suddenly felt different; everything was back to where it was, just like the beginning of every year. 

 

_ And here we go again.  _

 


	39. Lutes of Amber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Thirty Nine

 

At the first sign of civilization as they flew over the world, Davenport landed the ship. Even from their spot in the valley that surrounded the outskirts of the city, when the crew went onto the deck they were almost blinded by the far-off gleaming towers of colored glass framed by bright white stone. They could just barely make out some of the more detailed bits of the glittering metropolis; an elaborate network of latticed bridges overlapping and intersecting each other, building a pattern as they connected between each story of the thin buildings that reached far into the sky. They were immediately drawn to the beautiful city, but they knew that despite its allure, it had just as much of a chance of being hostile as anywhere else they had ever been. 

Taako and Magnus went to explore first and they came back safely and with stories to tell. Lucretia wrote everything down and then went back with Magnus to see things for herself and add detail to her records. Soon, they were all taking turns exploring the city, familiarizing themselves, gathering information, stocking up on what supplies they could find, and taking some time to enjoy themselves. Everyone except for Lup and Barry. 

 

***

 

Barry nervously tapped his fingers against the counter in front of him. He had lost track of time and wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting there, distracted, his thoughts racing. He was sure that there was no way he could go out into the city and interact with anything in it; he wondered how he might be able to plan his year around avoiding it entirely. From what he had heard about it, it was as if the whole city was made to torment him -- he felt trapped, stuck in a place that would almost certainly make him fuck up if he stepped out into it. He almost didn’t want to leave the lab at all, but he didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he was intentionally avoiding going out. But, then again, maybe everyone would just assume the place to be the sort of thing that would make him uncomfortable, anyways. They all knew that he could get pretty socially anxious and was only so comfortable with them because of time and proximity. Besides, he had a legitimate reason for not feeling much like going out or being in a fun, celebratory mood — and Lup had been feeling the same way, too. They were both caught up in the feeling of loss looming over them and had been avoiding each other because neither of them wanted to have to talk about the events of the previous year. Or at least, he assumed that she was feeling the same thing as he was, and that was why she hadn’t been around him much. Every time they did catch each other's eyes, he could see the same sad, lost expression on her face that he felt on his own. He wasn’t ready to unpack any of it, and if he ever was ready, he wasn’t sure how to do that with her without the danger of unraveling into an emotional mess and risking revealing more than he wanted to. 

 

...

 

Lup’s feelings were mixed. After being told about the city, all she wanted to do was run around and experience it with Barry. Of  _ course  _ she wanted to do that. It was also a completely terrifying thought. But, she  _ really  _ wanted to. She kept daydreaming about it and getting distracted, and she knew that there would be nothing but regret if she spent the whole year avoiding it, knowing they would never be able to come back… but what did she really expect to happen if they did go out? Actually, she was pretty sure she knew what would happen; they would walk around lost and nervous and uncomfortable and things would be weird. Or at best, they might find some way to bond over making light of the culture, or they might discover something to overanalyze and turn into work. They might even find the one corner of the city where there was a bookstore or some other place where things were normal, and they could have an excited conversation over something that would be typically considered boring. Even in the thick of that kind of  environment, she would find a way to avoid acknowledging it and she would lose her nerve and be wondering the whole time whether she was making him feel awkward. 

 

No one else had the same concerns of course, because no one else was in love with someone on the ship. So, everyone else took full advantage of going out into the city to experience all it had to offer without any nervous energy about what was there. A city where the only travel options were either boat rides through lazy, clear blue canals that connected the districts, or by carriages covered in flowers and drawn by tall, fawn-like animals. Then there were the cables that zig-zagged above, carrying silver, windowed pods, connecting from the lower part of the city to the upper levels at the opposite end, traveling over the rooftops and sparkling water features. Every street corner was dotted with people giving out flowers and scrolls of poems, or with performers playing instruments, singing, and reciting poetry. Every citizen was in a perpetual state of being dressed for fancy dinner dates or extravagant events, all with sweeping dresses and pristine suits, fitted shining black jackets trimmed with silver filigree, jingling skirts made of multicolored metal scales. Everywhere there were golden buttons, frilled collars, cufflinks, embroidered flower petals, strings of gems, bundles of curled ribbons... Everyone kissed when they greeted each other in the streets, everyone walked around looking as if they were in a dream, their feet barely touching the ground. There were constant celebrations and street fairs, and every activity and attraction seemed aimed at putting people close together. 

The culture was based on love, on romance, and every luxury and aesthetic and celebration they could possibly tie to it. People seemed to only work when and if they wanted to, yet somehow everything ran smoothly and the shops were all overflowing with artisan goods wrapped in ornately folded packaging by obviously skilled hands. It was idyllic, it was dreamlike, it was bursting with affectionate energy -- it was going to be the death of her. 

 

***

 

Taako, Merle, and Magnus were on their umpteenth tour of the town, collecting the gifts and compliments that were piled onto them at every turn. Passersby cooed over and complimented the trio, many stopping to talk to them and inviting them to dances or group dates. 

 

Merle idly ran a hand through his beard, silent for a moment after a couple walked off that had been fawning over them before inviting them to a fair coming up in a few days. 

“Everyone thinks we’re all  _ together, _ don’t they?” 

 

Taako snorted. “Yeah, I thought that was obvious like, a week ago.” 

 

Merle shrugged. “Well, I really don’t care as long as we keep getting all this stuff.”

 

Taako lightly hugged the pile of gifts in his arms. “Same here, my man.” 

 

“And I love all these compliments!” There was a noticeable bounce in Magnus’s step as they continued their aimless walk. “I’ve never been called pretty before; it’s kinda nice!” 

 

...

 

The city was divided into several distinct districts; there was one filled with restaurants and cafes, all with outdoor seating areas that overlooked the water of the canals, covered by twisted wrought-iron bordered awnings and illuminated by torch or candlelight. There was one just for  fine  clothing and jewelry, another for desserts and flowers and other gifts, and one with wide open spaces and courtyards for festivals and outdoor dances. And, as they eventually found out upon further exploration of the city, at the center of it all was a short, elaborately constructed building of white stone with glassless window arches that held the source of the city’s decadence; a brightly swirling opalescent portal housed in a stone well. It was guarded by kindly elders adorned in thickly layered robes. They stood on either side of the four doorways that led inside the small building, gentle smiles on their faces and eyes closed. They were happy to tell the crew about how things there worked, about how only a certain group of people were allowed to visit the portal to make requests for the needs of the city. The requests would be fulfilled by the next morning; shop owners would wake to their stores being fully stocked and get to work  tidying and handing out their goods for free to anyone who wanted them. They enjoyed their work in short shifts before the next person would relieve them, letting them off to frolic the city with their loved ones. Cooks entered their kitchens with fresh ingredients waiting for them and delighted in cooking for and impressing the patrons of their restaurants. And no one was greedy, no one took advantage; everyone was happy just knowing that they would always be provided for, always have what they needed and wanted, and that more would be awaiting them each day. Everyone understood and everyone worked together and it was all to make time and room for love. 

 

***

 

“Got an even better haul today!” Taako came practically falling through the door of the ship, yelling to no one in particular with Magnus and Merle following behind. They filed into the middle of the common room, spilling armfuls of random items onto the table in between the couches: small wrapped ribboned boxes of food, booklets of pressed flowers, delicate golden chains, exotic spices, and more. Lucretia and Davenport watched them from where they sat at the dining table. 

 

“This place is fucking amazing, they just have endless  _ everything _ and don’t have to work for shit.” Taako began separating everything that he could use in the kitchen to one end of the table while Merle and Magnus bickered over candy.  

 

“I hope you’re not taking advantage of them.” Davenport was concerned about how abundantly enthusiastic they had been each day over going out and collecting as much free stuff as they could. They had been fairly distracted with their collecting and hadn’t been finding ways to work for more practical supplies;  though he himself had accepted quite a few bottles of wine over their stay so far and had been — maybe just a  _ little  _ bit distracted by those gifts, himself. 

 

Barry left the lab for the first time since he had started work that morning; he  _ finally  _ felt cooped up enough to need to get away for a bit. He was also starting to feel that he was at least close to being ready to talk to Lup, if the opportunity came up. And, he knew he was being silly about not wanting to go into the city. Besides, Taako had a tendency to exaggerate things he was excited about. It probably wasn’t that bad, or at least there were probably plenty of spaces that weren’t so heavy on the whole romance thing. Also -- he didn’t  _ have  _ to go there with Lup. 

 

Barry walked into the common room to see Taako, Magnus, and Merle sifting through the piles of items they had scattered all over the coffee table. Merle was the first to actually look up from what they were doing and notice Barry. 

 

“Well look at that, it’s the stranger. Coming out to see the light of day, finally?” 

 

Barry did his best to casually laugh Merle’s comment off and quickly change the topic before anyone else could pile on him. 

“How’s your best friend doing, Merle? Haven’t heard you gush about him since breakfast.”

 

Merle sneered at Barry, “Oh,  _ hah hah.  _ You know, I wish you would take what I’m doing more seriously.”

 

“I do take it seriously, but do you?” 

 

Taako rolled back into his seat, laughing. 

“Hell yeah Barold, fuck ‘im up!” 

 

Davenport interjected before they all got any more riled up. “You really sitting this one out completely, Merle?”

 

“Yeah, he’s been getting kind of annoying sometimes.” 

 

Taako abruptly stopped laughing and leaned forward.  _ “Kind of annoying, sometimes?  _ You talk like he’s an old roommate, but last I checked, he’s a fucking world-ending existentially terrifying black cloud.” 

 

Merle snorted. “I know what he is! Doesn’t change the fact that sometimes it feels like it’s hard to get a conversation that isn’t all doom and gloom out of him.” 

 

Taako mimed rubbing away tears and put on a sarcastically sad face. “Oh boo-hoo, I am so sorry your relationship with the dude who is literally  _ eating worlds whole  _ is strained, that’s gotta be sooo hard for you.” 

 

Barry hid a laugh behind his hand and Merle shot a look at him before turning back to Taako and stuffing his nose in the air. 

 

“You know what, if you’re all gonna be this shitty to me, maybe I  _ will  _ just go and visit him and you can spend the rest of the year without me! We’ll see how much attention and gifts you get without me as part of the throuple.”

 

Barry heard Lup’s voice behind him as she walked into the common room from the kitchen, just in time to catch the tail end of the conversation. 

 

“No, you’re not gonna do that now, Merle. C’mon, I’ll get you away from these chucklefucks so that you can cool off. You wanted to work in the garden today, right?” Lup smiled at Barry before walking off with Merle, as if to let him know that she wasn’t counting him in with the ‘chucklefucks’. He knew she mustn’t have heard him and she probably assumed Magnus was the more likely one to be piling on to Merle along with Taako, and he immediately felt bad. But, only a little bit; Merle had been prickly with him lately and he didn’t mind being gruff back. It was all in good spirit, mostly. Nevertheless, Barry was glad that Lup, as always, was empathetic and knew when to break things up; even though she did occasionally have fun at Merle’s expense herself.

 

***

 

Taako stumbled into his and Lup’s bedroom, throwing more gifts into a pile that he started in a corner by the door. With his hands empty, he gesticulated widely at Lup, who was relaxing in bed with a book of Barry’s that she had snuck away from the lab. 

“Lu. They have got  _ the best  _ karaoke here. The songs are pretty easy to learn and they’re  _ gorgeous.  _ Like amazing -- you have to come with me. Merle’s already dragged Davenport over there, fuck if I know why, but I’ll be damned if they’re the only ones partying tonight.” 

 

Lup slammed the book shut and sat up. She was getting tired of avoiding the town as much as she had been, and having a planned destination with Taako seemed like a good way to not get too caught up in the place while still getting to go out, finally. 

“Hell yes, that actually sounds pretty fun. Lead me to it!” 

  
  
  


She right away felt the impulse to go get Barry -- but she knew she didn’t want to do that. On top of all of the other reasons not to, she would probably choke and screw up if he was listening, or she would look at him and get distracted trying to analyze the look on his face. It was still the best course of action to avoid the whole city in general with him. And, she wanted to just spend some time with Taako.  _ And... _ she was still having trouble looking at Barry’s face without being reminded of the face of the small child that she missed. Even though it was an easy year, there was still just so much about it that was hard.

 

***

 

Barry walked out into the common room, late in the evening, to see Magnus looking bored on the couch. He perked up when he saw Barry and smiled. 

“Hey, Barold! I just got back and everyone was busy or gone -- you wanna go out? There’s this place Taako told me about that has really cool lights and decorations and karaoke.”

 

Barry grimaced at the last part. “Hah, wow I uh -- singing kinda makes me nervous, I don’t think I would-”

 

“Well you don’t  _ have  _ to sing,” Magnus waved off Barry’s concern. “We can just watch all the other people who get drunk and totally bomb. And then you can watch me get drunk and bomb, too! It’ll be fun.”

 

Barry relented with a small laugh. “Hah, sure bud. But, uh -- if everyone’s out, who’s staying with the ship?”

 

“I’m gonna hang back.” Lucretia stood at the door to the deck, having just come back in from looking out at the city lights in the dark of the unlit valley in the evening. 

“I’ve got a good amount written up about this place, I was planning on spending the evening going over my notes and cleaning things up anyways.” 

 

“You’re the best, Creesh!” Magnus jumped to his feet and gestured for Barry to follow him to the door. Barry waved goodbye to Lucretia, and followed after Magnus, still nervous, still hesitant. 

 

Lucretia waited for a few minutes after they left before sneaking over to the coffee table and rummaging through the pile of goods. She found the bottle of wine that she had spotted earlier and then grabbed one of the dozens of boxes of chocolates and took them out onto the deck with her. She could always go out and replace them the next day; she had had her hands busy with writing during all of her visits to the city, so she had turned down being piled on with gifts so far. But, if everyone was going to be out, she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to have time alone to do some wine-buzzed creative writing out on the deck while overlooking the city that sparkled brighter than the stars.

 

***

 

Immediately upon stepping into town, Barry noticed the clear smell of wet stone carried on a gentle wind from the canals. The romantic air of the city was painfully obvious with the first sight of the streets that met his eyes -- the deep grey of the walkways made the carts spilling over with red flowers pop out with an aggressive sort of beauty, the tealights that hung in curtains along the ledges under building windows cast a warm, fuzzy light over the smartly dressed crowds of people locked in embraces or holding hands while they looked over menus at one of the various food carts. He had hoped that it wasn’t going to be as bad as it sounded -- but, it was even worse. It was only minutes into their walk and already everything was making him think about Lup, making him wonder what it would have been like to be there with her. A woman wearing a fancy apron and carrying a large basket of flowers strapped to her back handed Barry and Magnus a small bouquet each, barely skipping a beat on her evening quest of supplying everyone out on the town with bunches of flowers tied together with shiny ribbons. 

 

Couples walked by with arms tangled around each other, laughing and stopping at random to kiss as if they were suddenly taken over by a desperate need to do so. Barry kept seeing himself with Lup in every interaction between the people in love that they passed, and the guilt he felt was so distracting that he kept tuning in and out of the conversation that he was trying so hard to maintain with Magnus. Just… why did they have to be there? Why did there have to be a city like that at all? Why did he have to watch everything he wanted paraded in front of him, to be submerged in everything he would never have? He watched as people who embodied everything that he wasn’t stroll by -- the sharply dressed, casually confident people that were so comfortable and secure in knowing how to love and be loved. Maybe if he could have been any of those things, then just maybe he would have stood some scrap of a chance. 

 

He knew he was deserving of love. He wasn’t filled with so much self loathing that he felt like he didn’t deserve any. And he had the love of friends, a family. But… maybe if their world hadn’t been taken away, he could have had some semblance of romantic love in his life. It was an unfair situation, for all of them, for so many reasons. But, considering their setting, that was what was torturing him the most at the moment. If he had led a normal life, he would have been nearing the end. Which meant that he probably would have eventually found some sort of relationship, maybe built a life with someone. 

 

He knew that’s not what he wanted, though. Not at all. He loved everyone he was with. He loved his family, his home.  _ He loved Lup _ . There could never be anyone other than her. In his life before the mission, there still couldn’t have been anyone other than her; he just didn’t know her yet. His entire life had been leading up to meeting her, to knowing her, to falling in love with her. If he lived for a thousand years, for an eternity even, there could still be no one other than her. He knew that him loving her was his purpose. It drove him, pushed him further, made him able to survive their spectacularly unusual life. Everything he had ever done, every word he ever said every dream he ever had… it had all been to get to Lup. 

 

His frustrated mind just needed to go  _ somewhere,  _ he needed to find some sort of outlet. Anything to stop thinking about his pointless, childish, self destructive agony over Lup that was so strong that he couldn’t even handle being in a city with something as benign as a theme set  around romance. 

But just, how… how could she be the only one that he could ever love when she was impossible to love that way, when it was maybe even wrong of him to love her like that? How could his heart be  _ so  _ unfair to him, unfair to her? She wanted a best friend, she deserved a best friend, but it was a struggle for him every day to be that, and that was horribly selfish of him. He knew he would do anything if there was a way to not find that so hard. But as things stood, it was a constant fight with himself and his feelings to not say anything, to not ‘accidentally’ give himself away somehow, just to have it over with, just to be crushed so that he could process and stop the whole thing and move on. Maybe if he could move on, he could be a better friend. One that could exist in the setting he was in without falling apart over her. One that could even enjoy a place like that with her the way that Magnus, Taako and Merle had been enjoying it. But, if he let himself be found out, what if it irreparably harmed their friendship? He was stuck in an unsolvable problem.

 

And anyways, he knew that his love couldn’t be crushed. His love for her was housed in an indestructible vessel. There was nothing that could remove the warmth he felt in his heart for her; not embarrassment or shame or self loathing or tragedy or even lifelong torture. It would still be there, no matter how bad things got. It had become part of him just as much as his blood was part of him. She ran all through him, was living in him, and as long as even the echo of her voice or the vague silhouette of her being existed somewhere in the whole of existence, he would hold her there, in that unbreakable vessel in his heart. He could hold the color of her eyes even if he forgot his own name.

 

***

 

Merle got the idea to also go to the karaoke place from Taako, and he pressed hard to get Davenport to go along with him. He had found out on a drunken excursion years before that Davenport had once been classically trained in singing in his youth, before he started to dedicate all of his time to piloting. Ever since then, Merle had been relentless about wanting to hear Davenport sing, to which Davenport would do everything he could to change the subject or distract Merle with a game or some gentle gossip about others on the ship. Merle didn’t always take the bait, though, and he had never fully let it go… so when he saw his opportunity on that planet, he lept at it. His curiosity was insatiable, and he had no concept of why Davenport, or anyone for that matter, would ever want to keep a talent to themselves. 

 

Davenport took a long breath in and then exhaled, squinting and pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew that the day would come eventually where he would give in. 

 

“Okay, fine -- if it’ll make you finally let go of it.” 

 

Merle cocked his head and looked  _ almost  _ a little bit guilty, if that was even possible for Merle. 

“Oh come on, I’m not gonna make you, I just don’t know why you’d want to hide it! I bet you’re amazing!” 

 

“It’s not about hiding it, I just don’t feel like it’s that important. I’m the captain first and foremost, and that’s really all that should be important to anyone.”

 

Merle looked shocked. “Holy crap, do you really still think like that? It’s like every time we get that notion out of your head, you roll back into it. Lemme spell it out for you one last time; when you’re not flying the ship, you’re more like everyone else’s dad than you are a captain.” Merle put his hands on his hips proudly, sure that Davenport was going to listen to him. “Still respected, but allowed to have fun, and to just be  _ you.” _

 

Davenport chuckled through a soft exhale while shaking his head. “Alright, fine. You got me, Merle. It just sometimes feels like everyone still needs a lot of guidance and I fall into leadership mode again.” 

 

“Pfft. Yeah. That’s why you’re the dad.”

 

“I am… I get what you’re trying to say Merle, and it’s very nice, but I am  _ not  _ everyone’s dad.” 

 

Merle mumbled as he turned towards the door. “If you say so.”  

 

“I’m… I’m  _ not.”  _ Davenport followed Merle out the door of the Starblaster and towards the city, incredulous. 

 

***

 

Lup and Taako sat in a booth in a large room with vaulted ceilings and red and gold painted walls. The building served as a venue for all variety of dances, parties, musical performances, and other events, but when it wasn’t being used for those, it was a space for people to come sing with the assistance of a bright, transparent screen that hovered over the stage, displaying the lyrics and chords to the patron’s song of choice. Performers were backed by a duodecet of horns and strings, filling the hall with clear and velvety notes that gently reverberated off of the thickly insulated walls. The twins took turns thumbing through one of the gilded books that were set at each table, containing the available songs.

 

Lup shook her head as she skimmed the book. “I mean, I can know what the words are and what key it’s in all day, but it’s still going to be hard to keep up with the exact notes and rhythm and pacing of the song.”

 

Taako felt indifferent to any of the obvious troubles in singing songs they didn’t know. “Let’s just wait a few rounds and see what other people sing that we like, then we can just jack that song.” 

 

Lup shut the book and rolled her head back, exasperated. “Ugh, but then everyone will have heard it already.” 

 

Taako looked at Lup, one eyebrow raised. “Are you really that concerned? Worried about embarrassing yourself?” 

 

“Pfft, no. Just don’t want to annoy everyone.” Lup crossed her arms as she leaned back in her seat, done trying to look for a song. 

 

“I don’t think the people here could have a bad day, let alone a bad minute if they tried, so I def don’t think they’re gonna get annoyed at anything -- have you seen these fools? They’re like, on a constant dopamine high.” 

 

“True, true.” Lup pursed her lips and looked contemplatively down at the table while Taako snatched up the book. But then, they were both caught off guard by the beginning of a new song with a new singer on the other side of the room where the stage was. Taako let the book drop down onto the table and Lup leaned out of their booth and craned her neck to try and see who it was that was singing. The voice began the song with soft force, climbing from a thin, sweet pitch to a rich, upward-sweeping, sustained note that expertly quavered with a tightly controlled vibrato at the tail end before abruptly dropping, waiting a half beat, and then picking up the next syllable with a popping annunciation that called to itself all of the attention in the music hall. 

 

Barry and Magnus entered from the other side of the venue, stepping into the crowd of revelers who were milling about the floor of the hall, some lightly dancing while holding drinks, most of them talking. But, just as they entered and the first note of the current singer rang out, everyone stood still and turned their heads to the stage. Peering over the heads of the people crowded in front of them, Barry and Magnus saw that it was Davenport standing in front of the twelvlet band, singing with a hand half raised in front of him, palm upward. And then they saw Merle, uncomfortably close to the small stage, rocking back and forth, half-dancing to a rhythm that was not present. 

 

…

 

Magnus and Barry remained at the back of the crowd for a while after having their minds blown by Davenport. They chatted and discussed what to do before Magnus decided whether or not he would brave the stage. There was a line of food carts outside of the building, a candy shop across the street that Magnus was strongly advocating for despite not having eaten anything other than candy all day, and of course a crowd of people to socialize with in between gawking at whoever was singing next. Barry wanted to suggest heading outside for food, mostly because he was feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of people around them, and also because he wanted to postpone Magnus eventually leaving him on his own whenever he took a turn at singing. But just as Barry was about to ask about heading back outside, Magnus lightly elbowed him in the ribs. 

 

“Oh shit, look who it is! Dang, I guess pretty much everyone’s here.” 

 

Barry looked back to the stage to see Lup excitedly hopping up while Taako clapped and yelled from their booth. She hadn’t seen them with them being as far back in the crowd as they were, and Barry didn’t know what to do; to keep watching or to head outside or try to make his presence known to her somehow, so that he wouldn’t just be standing there awkwardly staring at her without her knowledge. But, before his brain could put together a decision, she started to sing. 

 

He was dumbstruck. He wasn’t even self aware enough to notice or care who might see the look on his face as he breathlessly watched her, feeling as if his heart had stopped working. Lup’s every movement, every utterance was overwhelming. Her notes impressed themselves on him in a way that even the stars at night couldn’t, embedding themselves in the delicate skin of his eardrums where they would never leave. And her face, the sincerity of her subtle movements, the expressions that flitted across her features -- he felt bad, she didn’t know that he was watching her, and so intently at that. But still, nothing could tear his gaze from her. There was  something so sweetly heartbreaking about her tone, about the song that she chose, about the words and the heavily dripping feelings she had imbued into each syllable, like bronze and silver instruments being melted down to their base components, like music being destroyed and remade, like the sound of looking at the moon or the pounding of his heart while watching the sunrise next to her. That was Lup, those were her words, that was her voice. The sensation of blissful melancholy made into sound, a hopeful tragedy, a wistful but joyous sense of loss and longing and he -- as he listened, he almost convinced himself to tell her, to find her immediately after she was finished, to tell her all of the feelings that her singing had just given him, how he had just been drowned by her voice and then had life breathed back into him. He wanted to,  _ needed  _ to hold her hands and tell her how he felt right then, how he had felt for so long, how he believed that he felt about her before even knowing her. There was a tug at his heart so strong, like she was pulling a string tied around it and it was going to be torn from his chest if he didn’t find her and close the gap and relieve the tension and tell her and be close and tell her  _ and tell her again, and again.  _

 

But, as soon as the last note was done, his heart sank and he knew he would only make a rambling fool of himself. He would destroy a perfect moment and would run the risk of forever tying the out of body experience he just had to a rejection so painful that he might never recover. He couldn’t do that. 

On top of all of that, he knew he didn’t have the courage. 

 

...

 

Taako, Davenport, Merle and Magnus all crowded around a table with drinks, listening to others sing. The conversation occasionally devolved into either pressuring Taako to sing because he hadn’t yet, or pressing Davenport to sing again because they were all so shocked by what he could do. They both staunchly held their ground and refused, skillfully changing the topic each time, but also having no mercy for each other, dogpiling along with Merle and Magnus onto the other in turns. 

 

Taako swirled his drink and rolled his eyes at Magnus’s latest round of pressure. “Why would I sing when Capn’port can apparently make angels weep and has kept it secret from us all this time.” Taako turned to Davenport, taking a sip of his drink before looking at him accusingly. “Pretty selfish of you.” 

  
  


Earlier in the evening, when Lup had finished singing and returned to her seat with Taako, Magnus of course made a beeline to them. Barry knew that he had to follow after him, otherwise things would be even more awkward than if he didn’t. He stood a couple feet away as Magnus hovered over the table and showered Lup with praise. Taako kicked back in his seat so that he could see around Magnus and tilted his head towards Barry, sipping his drink through a straw. Barry was pretty sure that the look Taako was giving him meant something, but he didn’t know what. He was also pretty sure that he saw Lup turning red under the gushing praise, and he took a mental note to not make a big deal out of anything since she seemed shy about it. The first time their eyes met during the conversation, he just smiled and nodded at her while Magnus continued to talk excitedly to the twins. Lup smiled back and gave Barry a small wave. 

 

Barry slipped out shortly after that; he didn’t know what to say or do with himself, and he felt that it would be better for him to just quietly get back to the ship instead of standing around panicking and being awkward. Even though it was late when he got back, he wasn’t feeling at all tired -- he knew he would probably be restless that night with the new emotions that had just been added to the ever-growing weight of his love for Lup. He stepped out onto the deck thinking he would be alone, but saw that Lucretia was there, reclining in a chair looking out towards the city. Barry turned to quietly step back inside and leave her be, but she noticed him and called out to him. 

 

“Hey, Barry! What is up?” 

 

Barry thought that her voice sounded a bit different, and she was definitely uncharacteristically loud and excited as she clumsily turned over in her chair and waved at him. He approached and soon noticed why; there was an entirely empty wine bottle on the ground next to her, and another one that she had obviously just gotten started on. He laughed at the sight; it was good to see her having fun. He took a seat on the ground. 

 

“How’s it going out here?” 

 

“So so good. I wrote some limericks. I’ve never tried them before and I- uh, wrote them about -- everyone.” As soon as she finished her sentence, Lucretia abruptly clutched her journal with both hands and protectively drew it to her chest. “I’m not ready to show them to anyone, though.” 

 

Barry raised a hand in oath, “I promise I won’t tell anyone about it.” 

 

Lucretia looked genuinely relieved, as if she had been in real danger. Then, she looked startled again. 

 

“Not even Lup?” 

 

“Oh, uh no -- yeah, not anyone, hah. No need to worry.” 

 

She went limp as she relaxed in her chair. “Okay. Because you two are just like…” she crossed her index and middle finger over each other, “like  _ that.”  _

 

Barry nervously laughed, his adrenaline rising; he hadn’t expected to be talking to anyone about Lup that night. It was maybe the last thing he was prepared for. 

 

“I mean -- we’re all close though, right?”

 

Lucretia nodded as she leaned further back into her chair and closed her eyes. “Yeah, but you two-” She trailed off as she dipped in and out of sleepiness, still holding her journal close. Barry waited a moment; it was starting to get chilly out, and regardless it probably wasn’t the greatest idea for her to be asleep out on the deck. He stood up and poked at her shoulder to wake her. 

 

“C’mon, I’ll walk you to your room.” 

 

…

 

After getting Lucretia to her room and setting a glass of water on the nightstand next to her, Barry worried over how much anyone else might have noticed anything about him when it came to Lup. What if he wasn’t fooling anyone, what if it was painfully obvious and everyone just felt bad for him? What if they all knew, but decided not to say anything because they were all stuck together and they’d rather not make things uncomfortable? They probably knew he would be mortified if they found out, if Lup had to acknowledge it and shoot him down, and no one wanted the burden of seeing him that way. 

 

He felt himself going to a bad place and stopped in the hallway on the way to his room to take a deep breath and will the thought away, to replace it with something better. And that was when he heard humming. It was coming from down at the end of the hall, from Lup and Taako’s room. Barry stood there silently and recognized that it was the song that Lup had been singing earlier. He wasn’t aware that she had come back to the ship, but apparently she had and she was in her room, humming to herself. Barry took in another slow and deep breath and smiled. He replaced his worries with her voice and stepped into his room. He fell asleep thinking about her singing, and he dreamt about her all night. 

  
  
  



	40. Scaling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Forty

 

They came upon a small opening where they could see outside -- it was the first time in hours that they had been able to do so. Or at least that’s what it felt like. With his eye to the open space, Barry saw that it was all still there; the roiling black liquid that blocked out the sun, that was filled with vaguely eye-like orbs in various spiraled patterns. The massive spheres floated and slipped in and out of the slick black waves of an ill-tempered ocean suspended in the sky. The blackness moved like plumes of ink shot into a clear glass of water, but it never settled, it never slowed down. It wasn’t the Hunger, though -- it was different, and it was closer. Like low storm clouds it hovered over the world, but didn’t interact with it. It housed horrible noises, like water boiling over as it drowned the distraught shrieking of a vicious animal in mortal pain. And then… there was the constant rumbling from within the clouds that sounded like snarling words, but not ones that they could understand. Barry looked away from the opening between the wooden boards and turned his attention back to half climbing, half crawling through the unsteady crawl space that wound up and down in all directions, haphazardly nailed together with wooden planks at every angle. There was no logic, no pattern, no consistency whatsoever -- it was less of a building than it was a physical expression of a desperate act in the face of terror. He wondered if someone actually built it, or if it just manifested; from what they had seen and felt there so far, the latter seemed more probable. 

 

Lup looked through the opening once Barry moved ahead. She wasn’t sure why she did; there wasn’t anything out there that she wanted to see. In fact, what she wanted was so much the opposite that she wondered what even possessed her to look at all. The way the sky was moving, the popping bubbles of thin black liquid and the bulbous, rolling eyes made her feel sick to look at. Seeing it gave her the overwhelming feeling that something was coming -- actually, it was more than a feeling. It was a promise. It was like suddenly being imbued with the knowledge that something was  _ definitely _ coming. She could feel her hands shaking just from the few seconds that she saw it. She looked back down at the rough, cracking boards beneath her and moved forward carefully, avoiding the splinters and loose nails as she crawled through the narrow space. 

Earlier, when Lup had tried to use her stone to contact Davenport on the ship, nothing went through. But they did  _ receive  _ something -- a static echo of the deep voice speaking garbled words outside. Lup had a full body reaction to it when it happened, violently and involuntarily spasming before she flung the stone down the corridor they were in. She didn’t want to touch it again; it felt like the ominous voice and the darkness along with it could creep into her from the stone. 

 

They desperately hoped that they wouldn’t get split up any further. There was a strong, almost unreasonable dread that they felt about ending up alone; in fact, there was an unusual amount of fear for them in general. Something about the place made them more afraid than they would ever normally be, and even though they realized that was the case, they couldn’t keep it in check. It was as if the flood gates that control the disbursement of epinephrine had been pried open, and there was nothing they could do about it except to experience primal fear, no matter what their level of lucidity of their situation was.

They lost Merle and Lucretia early on. They weren’t sure how, they just were suddenly not behind them anymore. There had been no other corridors, no turns to take, no doors or openings; there was nowhere for them to go. But somehow, they were gone. Lup knew that she was supposed to hope that wherever they had gone, they were at least together, but it was hard to actually feel things. She only knew what she  _ should  _ have felt, but could not find the place in her to sense anything other than distress. 

 

The uneven, creaking crawlspace ended and opened up into a dark room where they only barely had enough space to stand. The amount of time that they had spent in the crawlspace was fuzzy -- it could have been hours or days. Whatever it was, they were tired and their hands were sore and sharply hurting with the splinters they hadn’t been able to avoid. Barry couldn’t see an inch from his face in the pitch dark of the room, and even Lup was having a hard time making out very much. It was as if the room wasn’t just dark, but more like it was filled with the absence of light, or as if there was something in the atmosphere that took away any droplet of light and then ate up the darkness to create something even darker. Lup could just barely make out the vague silhouettes of clumps of wires hanging from the incomplete ceiling and she shuddered. Everything,  _ every single thing _ was ominous within the context of the structure they were inside of; even something simple like hanging wires. 

 

Somewhere ahead of them was the sound of dripping water. Barry didn’t know how to proceed -- were they really going to walk into the complete darkness, risking falling through openings in the floor, being torn up from sharp, splitting boards? Even though they could stand, maybe it would be safer to continue to crawl, so that they could feel out each inch before moving forward. His knees were battered and his hands felt raw, but his pain was overridden by the fear of falling through the boards and becoming lost in an even worse part of the house, alone. He was about to ask Lup what she wanted to do next, but then something caught Lup’s eye and she turned towards it before he could speak. There was a faint glowing in the opposite corner. It wasn’t the glowing of the light, but it was  _ a  _ light. She wondered whether they could use it to make it through the darkness.

 

“There’s a light over there, in the corner. I think I should go get it.” Lup’s voice was flat and far away. It was strange, but Barry knew he didn’t sound normal, either. He heard the floor creak as she shifted her weight, about to take a step forward. A dark unease gripped his heart and he felt around for her, his voice caught in his throat, unable to even say the word ‘no’. He found her arm and held on to it with both of his hands. She stopped moving and stood still, silent for a prolonged moment before speaking. 

 

“You’re right. We shouldn’t separate. At all.” 

 

Barry continued to hold on to her arm with two hands, and they moved at an excruciatingly slow pace towards the glow. With every movement that Barry made, he was unable to see where he was stepping or what he might be walking into. He felt the occasional wire drag across the top of his head, and the sharp pain of full body fear ran through him each time. 

 

They couldn’t tell how long it took them, but they eventually made it to the glowing light in the corner. It was inside of an opening in the wall; a square hollow surrounded by frantically nailed down boards. One of them would have to reach their hand inside to grab whatever it was -- Lup felt a wave of nausea roll over her at the realization and her brow became dotted with cold sweat. Barry didn’t want to do it -- but he also knew that Lup wouldn’t want to. He felt sick to his stomach and he could feel his panicked heart beat in his throat, but he stepped forward and started to move his hand towards the softly lit opening. Lup felt a relief so strong that she couldn’t feel anything else, not even concern for Barry. Though again, she knew that she was supposed to, that she normally would have. 

 

His hand was shaking violently as he painstakingly inched his fingers into the hollow and lightly touched the object. He carefully moved his fingers along it, testing its surface. It had a soft give to it, a mushiness. It was cold and part of it felt wet. The top middle of it was bumpy, but the sides were more solid and smooth, so he grabbed it from there. Pulling it out, the glow became brighter, and they found themselves with a piece of fruit, pale orange and with a loose pile of round, black, shiny seeds sitting in an indentation in the center. It looked like there was something smoldering underneath the seeds in the stomach of the fruit, and that was what was causing the light. It wasn’t very strong, but it did illuminate their immediate area, enough for them to at least see their next step, and that was so much more than they previously had. Barry held it cupped in his hand in front of him, his other hand still gripping Lup’s arm. They didn’t speak, they just turned away from the corner and walked along the perimeter of the room, looking for an opening or a door or just some place to continue on their way through the chaotic wooden structure. They noticed that the opening they had entered the space from was gone, and it was only after their second walk around the room that they found a hatch in the floor. They both stopped as soon as they saw it and stood there, feeling like they were anchored by roots wrapped around the spaces between the floorboards under them. They had been looking for a way out, but when they found it, they didn’t want it.

 

“I don’t think we’re going to reach the light. I don’t think that we’re going to get out of here at all.” Lup’s voice startled Barry and it took a moment before he was able to register it as a sound that was supposed to be comforting. But the words were… he didn’t want to feel that. Why did she say that? He shook his head, trying to dislodge any and all thoughts, to throw them away.

 

“We should go down, right?” He tried to look at Lup’s face, tried to see if she even noticed that he was speaking. She looked so hollow, he wondered if she was even there, or if he was actually by himself…

 

“Yeah. I guess.” 

To Barry, it sounded like her words were sharp around the edges. But everything was sharp. Everything around them was sharp, the splinters in his hands were sharp, and she was sharp too; was she actually there?

 

“Lup. Are you here?” 

She turned to look at him and saw his face lit from below with a dim, orange light. It frightened her for a moment before she remembered that it was Barry in front of her, holding their small lightsource. He saw the shadow of fear on her face and recoiled, feeling sure that it wasn’t her standing next to him. Why would she be afraid of him? Gods… was there a reason to be afraid of him? Why was… his eyes widened as he tried to think and found his mind blank. If he didn’t know what he was, maybe there was a reason to be afraid of him. That was actually Lup and he had done something wrong or  _ was  _ something wrong. 

 

She saw him panicking, but comforting words weren’t something that she could conjure up at the moment. She just continued to look at him as she reached out to grip his arm. 

“I don’t know how we can hold on to each other and climb down at the same time. We’ll have to go slowly. And stay close. We’ll go slow and stay close.” 

And even though she couldn’t emote as she said it, Barry felt that it was maybe the most comforting thing he had ever heard. 

 

***

 

Davenport was increasingly worried with every hour that went by. They had watched as the light landed, falling into a hole in the patchwork roof of a small, decrepit shack. It should have taken an hour at most to walk from the large flat space they found to park the Starblaster to the tiny house and then back. It looked like it might have been a two-room building at most, but for some reason they had been there for hours and he’d gotten no contact from them. He watched the door of the shack with binoculars from the deck, checking the windows, looking for some sign of movement inside. The bright sunny day gave him a clear view of the hut; he watched it intently but not so much as a blade of grass moved as he watched. He was filled with regret over allowing so many of them to go -- it seemed easy and safe, but he should have known better. With not even hearing from them, the only thing he could assume is that they were dead, that something inside had killed them as soon as they entered the door. There was no way that maybe someone was there and they had gotten caught up in talking to them for that long without checking in or responding to his calls. 

 

Or maybe they had been trapped -- bewitched, hypnotized, frozen in time, encased in stone, or some other strange, alien thing. Maybe they could be rescued… but there was already only three of them, and it was so early in the year. Why had he let so many of them go? They all had their different reasons for wanting to, it seemed like nothing. But when was the last time that  _ anything  _ was actually nothing? Especially the innocent seeming things. Why had he done that, why didn’t he keep a tighter control on the situation? The rest of the year was going to leave him with nerves shot to hell and a guilt that was going to weigh on him so much that it would keep him up at night. He was going to be overprotective and overbearing on Taako and Magnus, and he could already feel their annoyance, their boredom at how he was going to be running things for the rest of the year if they didn’t get anyone back. And Taako -- he was going to be a mess all year with Lup gone, justifiably. And maybe even mad at him. He had a headache and was already grinding his teeth. 

 

***

 

Merle’s demeanor was strange to Lucretia, but she could only barely find it within herself to be concerned about that. Every step they took had the potential to be perilous as they did their best to find and step only onto the exposed wooden beams underneath the series of boards that failed to make up a complete floor. It was too dark to see what was underneath them. They could only tell that it was empty space and that there was the strong smell of fruit on the brink of rotting wafting up from below. Not far ahead of them, they finally saw that the boards became more frequent and started to form a complete floor without treacherous gaps. It was a relief, but it also meant that they wouldn’t know where the beams were underneath, and they might step onto weak spots that would give out. Once they made it to the solid floor, the hall in front of them started to dramatically slope downward. The walls and the ceiling alike were all made of the same pattern of nailed down boards with knots and holes in them, and it wasn’t long before they felt like they couldn’t tell whether they were going up or down. Lucretia didn’t want to cause any more alarm than there already was, but she could have sworn that she saw the whites of eyes flash and then dart away from inside of the holes in the wooden boards. Did it even matter to acknowledge it? What could they do… the hopelessness that Lucretia felt traveled to her knees and she almost fell. Limp, drowsy, apathetic, worn down -- she wasn’t sure why they continued to walk, why she continued to follow Merle. What were they even doing? They weren’t going to find the light. Didn’t he know that? Something had led them there on purpose, or maybe the light was even just an illusion and it hadn’t landed anywhere near there. 

 

Merle held his arms out to balance himself as he stepped across the beams. They were -- the floor was gone again. It had been gone for a long time, it felt like. But he was sure that there was a point in time where it wasn’t, where they were walking on something solid. There were several times where he felt himself almost fall; his entire body was becoming sore from all of the effort it took to stay balanced. But there was nothing to be done about it at that point but to keep going; they had been traveling that way for so long that it wouldn’t make sense to turn back. Though, there was no way of being able to tell how long the floor would be mostly incomplete ahead of them. Maybe it would never fill in, maybe they would walk like that until they were physically incapable of doing so anymore and then they would have to try and find a way to sit on the narrow beams and do nothing but wonder what was underneath them, trying not to let their legs hang down. Or, one or both of them would fall. He didn’t want to think about what might have been below them. He was sure that he saw flashes of something long and fast darting around underneath the few times that he had made the mistake of looking down. He wasn’t going to tell Lucretia, though. Not that, and not about the thick, slow bubbling noises that he could faintly hear, like there was some sort of boiling swamp water below them. He felt pretty sure that she couldn’t hear or see -- otherwise she would have told him, right? She would tell him because there was very little that ever shook Merle, he was always so relaxed, so accepting of their situations. But, he wasn’t feeling great about the place that they were in. He felt an uneasiness in the pit of his stomach like he had never felt before, and it made it all the harder to balance as they pressed forward. 

 

Lucretia stopped. Standing on a beam with a particularly challenging space in front of it to make it to the next one, she paused just long enough to start looking down for a little bit too long. She stared and even though she could see nothing, she was mesmerized. It suddenly felt like there was something down there that she wanted, that she needed. It was only a few more seconds before it felt like there was something that she  _ had  _ to have, that nothing else mattered except for being down there. Merle noticed that he didn’t hear Lucretia moving behind him and carefully got himself balanced so that he could turn around to look, just in time to see her diving between the beams in front of her. He yelled her name and almost lost his balance. His eyes darted around wildly, looking down, trying to find her, not knowing what he would do even if he did. Why did that happen? Was that supposed to happen? Maybe that was okay, maybe that was meant to happen. Had they talked about that? As he looked into the murky darkness below, he felt more and more like it made sense that she did that. There was a place for her down there, he thought. He was meant to keep going, though. He hadn’t reached his spot yet. 

 

***

 

Lup kneeled down and opened the door to the hatch, revealing a vertical narrow space. One side of it had large openings between the boards, presumably to act as a ladder. Her and Barry looked at each other. 

 

“Stay close?” Barry was terrified of losing Lup; he had to confirm their plan again, even though all it consisted of were those two words. 

 

“Yeah.”

 

Lup went first and Barry stepped down immediately after, holding on to the boards with only one hand as he held the soft light in the other. As soon as she let go of each board to grab the one below, he would step onto the one she had just let go of; they found a slow rhythm that made sure they were never more than one rung away from each other. Once they were on the ground, the first moment that he was able to, he was holding onto her arm again. 

They continued down a long, dark hallway -- Lup could see no clear end to it, but with every surface being a disorderly pattern of boards, the walls sometimes created an optical illusion where all they could see were boards forever and no clear turns or openings. It was at least a taller and wider space, though. The floor underneath them complained with each step and sounded like it could give out at any moment. 

 

There was more glowing further down the hallway, but it was coming from both sides and in multiple spots. It almost looked like sunlight pouring through windows and Lup was scared of being able to see the clouds outside again, even though she knew that there was no light out there to pour in. At the thought of the clouds, she felt her breath and her heart come to a standstill and she could vividly imagine, so much so that it seemed as if it were actually happening, great dark grey hands made of plumes of sentient dust pouring in through the windows and crushing and choking them in a tangle of partially corporeal fingers. She felt her head spin and Barry could sense that she was reacting to something and tightened his grip on her arm. 

 

“Are you okay?”

 

Lup took a moment to gather herself before she was able to respond. 

 

“Yeah. Just felt something. Bad.”

 

Barry only nodded rather than ask what it was -- the foreboding feelings and the sensation that something terrible was about to happen were constant, and it was probably better to keep moving than try to explain or process any of it. 

 

Once they were closer to the lights, they were able to make out some details --there were openings in the walls, covered by glass. But they weren’t windows; they were square containers set into the walls, some of them with a board or two over them to block them into their individual space, making them unable to be removed. 

Once they were near enough to look into the glass cubes, they tried to make sense of what they saw or why it was there. They were terrariums, partially filled with sandy or loamy substrates and some filled with what looked like wooden boards that had been mostly shredded into splinters. Many of them were littered with crumpled paper trash and handfuls of half-eaten food, matted lumps of off-white string, tangled balls of wire, and a number of unidentifiable bits and pieces that were hard to look at. The inside of most of the glass was thick with dust and some looked like they had been smeared with dirt from the inside, the shape of hands visible in the dried mud. Most disturbing of all was the variety of taxidermied reptiles inside of the tanks. They were dull with dust, faces frozen in mid-action, wide eyes and open, dirt filled mouths. Each tank had multiple, various types of reptiles in them; ones that didn’t belong together, that stuck out from their settings, that were in such incongruous and filthy environments that it made Barry and Lup feel grotesque for even being there. The tanks were lit from the back; against the wall behind each terrarium were yellow, flickering light bulbs, some striped with dried mud. Everything was out of place in a way that couldn’t be explained or understood and something about it made their heads hurt and their eyes unfocus. They continued down the hallway; there was tank after tank set into the walls, and they didn’t want to look at them but they had a hard time keeping their eyes from being drawn to them. One tank was filled halfway with rotting fruit and the light behind it was broken, so that it was just a dark square of glass with a pile of fruit inside turning soft and white and green. They could just barely make out the frozen faces of snakes peeking out from inside the heap of fruit, obviously intentionally placed and posed. They got to one tank that was entirely filled with twigs, packed with them, like they had been tamped down and even as they snapped and broke and twisted, they were pushed down until the rusty screen lid fit on top. Lup swore she saw something twitching in the center, and she could feel the senseless, demoniacal energy that it must have taken to shove so many twigs into that glass space, persevering through the ear piercing scratching and screeching against the glass. She could almost make out what it was that had done that in her head, like there was an outline of some organism in a place in her brain that she had never been able to access before. 

 

Lup stopped in her tracks suddenly. “Why are we here?” 

Barry could only barely make out Lup’s face with the small amount of light from the fruit in his hand and the tanks lit by dirty bulbs. It was enough for him to see the blank look on her face, the confusion settling over her brow that was twisted in panic. 

 

“Lup.” He faced her fully and slid his grip on her to her shoulder, never taking a finger off of her. “Lup, we’re -- looking for the light. Right?”

 

He saw relief settle on her face and her eyes open wide at the obviousness of the answer. 

“Oh, oh yeah. That’s right. Thank you B -- Barry.” 

 

Did she… did she forget his name for a second? 

Barry wasn’t able to hold on to that question for long, though. He noticed that he was starting to feel confused, turned around. After he had moved to face her, he didn’t know which way they were walking anymore. He was sure that the tanks had only started partway down the hall, but as he looked back and forth he saw them extending as far as he was able to see in each direction.

 

***

 

Lucretia felt like she was drowning. She couldn’t move her arms or legs, she couldn’t see, could barely feel anything except for the alarming sensation of  _ something  _ filling her lungs. Nothing happened when she opened her mouth -- she wasn’t even sure if she actually was opening it or not. There were only thoughts, no feelings, no confirmation that she was actually interacting with the environment around her. And then it was all snapped away by a rush of sensation and feeling, pain, touch, gasping for air, sight, and it was suddenly so so bright that it hurt. Sputtering and coughing, she felt something thick and heavy repeatedly falling onto her head and she looked up to see a ceiling that looked like a swamp. It was all made of slick, green and black cloudy liquid and was suspended throughout the room, except for the spot where she had fallen through where it was pouring out and landing on her in bucket-sized globs. She moved out of the way and slowly stumbled to her feet, her clothes and hair heavy with the mud and grime that she was drenched in. And she found herself in a well-lit room. A room with dark walls, the underside of a swamp as the ceiling, and in front of her, sitting up against the back wall was a meditating figure. It looked slightly limp and was barely sitting up, almost looking like it was sleeping. It was connected to dozens of slack strings that ran from the swampy ceiling. The muddy sludge from the ceiling trickled down the strings, collecting on to the figure in layers that ran in curtains of dried mud over the sleeping being. 

Lucretia stared, entranced, wondering what to do; approach the thing, walk up to it, try to find a way out? She was drawn to it, which was probably a sign to stay far from it, but the more she stood and thought, the more she knew that she had to get near it. As soon as the decision revealed itself in her thoughts, the being’s eyes moved, cracking open with flakes of dried mud falling off of it from around what revealed themselves to be luminous, bulbous yellow glowing eyes. 

 

VVVVVVVVVVVVV     

  VVVVVVVVVVVVV  

    VVVVVVVVVVVVV

 

The sound the figure made was like humming or purring, but it was echoing all around it and not coming from it, and it made the floor shake and the walls rumble and Lucretia could feel it vibrating in her teeth. It hurt her head, but it also felt exquisite, beautiful, necessary. 

She was afraid of it, but also wanted --  _ had  _ to be close. 

 

…

 

Merle kept looking behind him for Lucretia, repeatedly forgetting that she was gone. He was climbing up, through a shaft that he couldn’t see the top of, grabbing at spaces between boards and barely avoiding scraping his elbows against the sides that seemed to be closing in on him more and more. There was an occasional cold gust of air that came through the spaces in the boards and Merle was starting to shiver. He had been climbing for so long, and his body was about to give out. The only thing that kept him going was the all-encompassing fear of falling down into the shaft. If there was a top, he would find it, or at least if there were a space between the boards large enough at some point to crawl in, to sit or curl up for just a while… he could really go for that. 

As if his mind were being read, he came upon a spot where to one side, there was a space large enough to climb into. And so he did. In the small dark space, lying still for a moment finally, he felt how completely wracked with pain his body was. There was no way that he was going to be able to climb anymore. And there was no sign of it stopping. And then he had a thought -- a way out. Something pulled at him to stay, something said how it had just given him this spot to rest and why would he leave now. He hurried to escape before whatever it was pulled at him anymore. He closed his eyes and left to go talk to John. 

 

***

 

Barry felt something crawl over his hand and Lup heard buzzing. They looked at Barry’s hand holding the fruit at the same time and saw that it was covered with wasps. The wasps moved carefully over Barry’s hand, flicking antennae curiously. Whenever one reached the center of the fruit, the light within the black seeds pulsed and the wasps were easily and softly burnt up as soon as they touched a seed with a cautious leg.

 

After the third wasp burned, Barry felt an intense, unidentifiable emotion swelling within him, choking him. And then it was so strong that he wasn’t able to breathe. He dropped the fruit and it splattered against the floor and the wasps buzzed threateningly as they took off, flying away from their destroyed perch . Lup felt like she was violently knocked out of a hypnotic stupor, and all of a sudden her feelings and consciousness and awareness and personality all came rushing to her in a wave so potent that it hurt the back of her brain. She covered the back of her head with a reflexive hand motion and winced. Barry grabbed at his chest, feeling like something was pushing at him, threatening to crush him. He gasped and wheezed and the sound of him being in pain drove Lup into a surge of emotion that manifested in a furious rage towards the trap that they were stuck in. She wanted to destroy everything, everything around them; if they just burned the whole fucking place to the ground then they would find the light in the rubble and that would fix everything. She was about to burst watching Barry struggle to breathe, but she didn’t know how to destroy everything around them without lighting them up as well -- they were basically inside of a tinderbox. She grabbed at Barry, tried patting his back at first, tried rubbing circles on his back, tried to speak to him, to calm him, tried hitting his back as he choked and gripped at his chest like he was trying to tear something off of him. And then he was just shaking and the noise from his mouth was like muted swallowing. He didn’t even have enough breath to choke anymore. He fell to his knees and Lup fell to her knees next to him, her eyebrows cinched together in panic, grabbing at him, trying to do anything, until she was just holding him as his chest occasionally spasmed from desperate, instinctual dying attempts at trying to take in air. She felt him slump in her arms, and she quickly leaned him back and laid him out on the floor that creaked under their every movement. She hoped that it wouldn’t give out underneath them, not just yet. She heard scuttling coming from one of the tanks in the wall behind her, but she tuned it out even though it sent shivers down her spine. She was focused only on him. On her knees next to Barry, she leaned over and gently pulled at his chin to open his mouth, looking inside to make sure that there wasn’t any physical object that was blocking his breathing. Then, she started with a steady beat of compressions on his chest, the floor underneath him creaking more and more with every press. She leaned over him and parted his lips with her fingers before putting her mouth onto his, breathing into him, her tears falling onto his face as she tried so hard to keep her breath steady for him. She repeated the process, each attempt more desperate than the last, she wanted him to be okay she didn’t want to be alone, she didn’t want to miss him all year,  _ she wanted him to be okay please- _

 

And then she felt something move across her hand. It happened just as she raised herself back up from his lips to go through another round of compressions. She saw nothing there, though. She reacted fast, swiping her hand through the air a couple of inches over Barry’s chest, and she grabbed something. She held it in as strong of a grip as she could manage, feeling doused in wild frenzy, sure that the thing in her hand was responsible for Barry’s lifeless body in front of her. It felt rough-skinned and sinewy as it writhed in her clenched fist, and she heard a hoarse hissing, spraying sort of noise. She tightened her hand down on it and it twisted more and started frantically scratching at her. She watched as cuts formed on her hand from nowhere and some of her blood dripped across Barry’s chest. Taken over with fury at whatever the thing was, convinced that it was what had just killed Barry, she grabbed it with her other hand, gritting her teeth, looking at her fists with hatred burning through her eyes as she concentrated heat through her palms. The hissing intensified and rose to a high-pitched squealing -- and then she saw that she was only grabbing at some small part of it. It started to glow with heat and its surface started to blacken, its burned skin slowly revealing its form. There was a mass of coils and crooked legs of different sizes and positions all over the body, most looking defunct, wriggling and intermittently grasping with needled claws. It skittered backwards, tearing up Barry’s shirt as it did, but she jerked it back and stood to her feet, gripping the thing by the unidentifiable appendage that she had her hands wrapped around, and she watched more and more of it become visible as it was consumed with her fire from the inside out. The body seemed to never end, and she ducked as tethers whipped out from somewhere within the coils and went for her face before they dissipated into ash. She shook under her anger and her fierce desire to kill the thing clutched in her hands and after one final full body spasm and ear splitting screech, the entire thing fell into blackened wisps of heavy smoke and soot and suddenly Lup’s hands were empty. She breathed, in and out, for the first time since she had grabbed it. And then she heard another breath after hers -- and then heard choking and coughing as Barry struggled to sit up. 

 

Lup’s breathing became so heavy with the overflow of emotions and adrenaline and confusion that she was lightheaded. She fell towards Barry and held onto him. After coughing a couple more times, he was finally able to breathe, though his throat was still tight with discomfort. He became aware of himself as he inhaled, aware of Lup clinging on to him. With her arms circled around him, she leaned her head back and looked up at him. 

 

“I’m going to burn this fucking place down. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. But that is what’s going to happen next.” 

 

“What -- what about Merle and Lucretia?” 

 

Lup was shaking from feeling so trapped, so powerless. “Do you think they’re even alive? Do you think we’re going to get out of here any other way? What else can we do except demolish this fucking deathtrap?” 

 

Barry wrung his hands, suddenly feeling nervous beyond reason. “I-I don’t- I don’t know, L-Lup. But we can’t -- w-we can’t just- we  _ can’t,  _ r-right?” 

 

Lup leaned back further from Barry and gripped both of his shoulders. “I need out of here. I need out of here right the fuck now.” 

 

“L-Lup, I…” Barry looked at her, his mouth agape, trying to find words to say that he wasn’t sure existed. 

 

Lup saw a flash of her reflection in Barry’s glasses. She saw how wild-eyed and desperate and -- how unlike herself she looked. And then she saw Barry’s eyes; how he was tapering away and something else was taking over, something that was replacing everything in him with fear again, something that was taking Barry away from her. She loosened her grip on his shoulders and rubbed her hands up and down them instead, as if she were trying to keep him warm. 

 

“I’ll go in sections. I think. I can control this. I -- you can help me, right? Taako’s taught you enough? You’re good, you’re so good, you can help me keep the flames in check, right? Barry?” 

She spoke carefully, slowly, making sure that her voice stayed steady, that she didn’t add to the tension, that she kept her panic under control. Barry nodded, absentmindedly at first, and then closed his eyes for a moment, concentrated on Lup’s hands on his shoulders, then nodded as emphatically as he could muster.

“Yes. Yes, of course I can help. That’s a -- that’s a good idea, Lup.” 

 

“Okay. Okay. Not the wall to outside. I don’t want to go outside, yet. Let’s go down. Maybe there’ll be something that makes sense at the bottom, at the end. Maybe we can find them. And then we can burn everything.”

 

***

 

“Ah, Merle. Back so soon?”

 

“Yeah, couldn’t wait this time. Had to get out of a bad situation.” Merle drummed his fingers on the table in front of him, feeling confused and a little sick, as if he had just woken up from a night of heavy drinking. 

 

“Oh? And what was that?” 

 

“Some really messed up place. Pretty sure there was no way to actually get out of there, and I lost everyone, besides. Too freaky, couldn’t take it anymore.” 

 

Even as Merle spoke, he started to realize that maybe what he had done was a poor decision. As soon as he was removed from that place, he felt differently, was thinking differently. There was obviously something about the place that was controlling their thoughts, manipulating their mood, getting inside their heads. But, it was too late to worry about it much -- it was done and over with, and as soon as John inevitably killed him, he would be back on the ship in an instant. Thinking of that… he was a little bit worried about everyone being annoyed at him for dipping out at such a critical moment. Unless… how would anyone know that he had intentionally left? That place was creepy as hell, it was totally plausible that he could’ve been killed. But could he lie to his family like that? No -- not even to save face or cover his own ass. Never. He’d rather face the consequences of absolutely anything than to ever do them wrong. 

 

John’s hand twitched. “Too, uhh -- ‘freaky’ you say? What was it?”

 

“Crap, I barely know how to even describe it. Especially now that I’m here, I’m already forgetting about it.” 

 

“Hmm.” John seemed to lose himself in thought for a moment. “Strange. But, I suppose there are a lot of these planets where things are very... different from what you are used to.” He moved away from the window and sat down at the other end of the table to face Merle, placing his elbows on the surface and lacing his fingers under his chin before continuing. 

“Whenever I am able to pick up new worlds, there are — I guess, ‘inconsistencies’ that I can feel. But, it’s ephemeral; a moment so fleeting that it’s barely worth mentioning. I’ve never thought about what it must be like for you all to be living there and experiencing such different places so fully. I haven’t thought about the passage of time much at all ever since -- ever since I’ve been as I am now. It loses its meaning after a while of being outside of it, not being controlled by it. That’s -- that’s very interesting, thinking about how you must experience and feel about these planets before I come along and just scoop them up and feel their history, their individual qualities only for a brief moment before they become part of everything, before they exist all at once with every other reality.” 

 

Merle tightened the corner of his mouth and shrugged. “Yeah, well we gotta deal with all of them, whether we like it or not.” 

 

“Tell me, Merle. What was it that was frightening you?”

 

Merle raised his eyebrow at John. “Is that your question this time?”

 

“Well… no. I was just curious. But, for now, there are other things I’m more curious about .”

 

“Well?” 

 

“I want to know more about the people you travel with.” 

 

“Okay, but that’s not a question.” Merle had recently been absorbing the message from the others that he should be a little bit more guarded with the information he gave. He still was mostly concerned about getting real conversation, real personality from John, but he was figuring out how to limit the information he gave him by insisting on more specific questions. John was annoyed by it. 

 

“Alright, well. Can you tell me about the others that you travel with?” 

 

Merle whistled. “That’s a whole lot. What do you want me to tell you about them? I’ve been with them for a long time, after all. Ya gotta be more specific, otherwise we’ll be here for hours, and you don’t usually let me live that long.” 

 

John was feeling just slightly frustrated; he wasn’t sure exactly what it was that he was trying to figure out. He was hoping to just happen upon something, which had been easy before because Merle had been so liberal with his information, wandering from topic to topic unprompted. But, more recently he had been restraining himself and requesting specificity. He must have been being coached. That was inconvenient, but it did in itself give him  _ some  _ information; the people that Merle was with weren’t like him. They were maybe a little bit more tactical, careful. Meaning they were the ones that he probably needed to know more about if he was going to get the annoyance of their existence out of the way.

 

Merle was distracted. He couldn’t stop thinking about the others, still trapped in that place. It was… a horrible place to be. And it sucked out some sort of essential emotion, motivation, personality, while being there. And he had just dipped out. They were still there, and sure, he was going to die in probably however long it took to play one game of chess, but then it would be over and he would be on the ship. And he would see their faces and not know how long they had been caught there or how horrible their year had been. 

 

***

 

Lup pressed firm and angry hands against parts of the walls of their splintering prison and burned up boards and beams while Barry used transmutation spells that Taako had taught him to expand and control water from the flasks that they always had with them in one of the many secured, inner pockets of their robes. He kept the areas around her controlled fire dampened so that it didn’t spread and light up everything. Lup destroyed entire walls, created holes in the floors and ceilings so that they could see what other options they had, tried to make some sense of the endless maze that they were in. And they finally found something different; large, vertical, rusty metal beams. Lup continued to burn away the wood from around them and they found several of the metal beams, wrapped in wires that traveled through holes in the metal and circled around them from one side to the other, creating a sort of spider web of wires of different colors and thickness. Some of them were exposed, some were bundled together and wrapped in a sort of woven cloth, some were tangled into knots that added to the intricate web-like pattern. Lup tested one of the masses between the poles to see what its strength was like. She edged closer to the beams and looked down. 

 

“Well. I think getting to the bottom would make more sense than climbing up, right? If we can get to the ground level, maybe we can burn our way out of a wall there.”

 

“That would -- that sounds like a good idea, but what if -- what if we’re underground right now?” 

 

Lup stared silently down into the metal and wire wrapped tunnel. 

“I just. I don’t feel like we are. I don’t think we are. I think we’re getting close to the ground.” She looked away from the tunnel and turned to Barry. “Do you trust me?” 

“Of course.” Barry’s eyes told her everything as he looked at her with sincerity and a reverence that she was sure she’d never seen, and she wasn’t sure where it came from. She thought he looked a little bit dazed as he spoke. “Always, Lup.” 

 

…

 

It was at the bottom of the metal encased shaft that they climbed through at the expense of their bloodied and cut up hands where they saw Lucretia. They had finally reached a point where they could descend no further and walked out onto solid ground again for the first time in hours. As they moved out of the tunnel, they saw her across the room. Staring. Staring at a figure that was wrapped in strings that hung like veins from the throbbing ceiling. It looked like it was connected to the whole structure, to the meaty, alive and pulsing insides, like it was more of an organ than its own entity. They saw its mud encased body and from where the head was, large glowing eyes. From the sides, they could see that the eyes extended out like glass bowls of a clear yellow glass and that the light source was coming from within. Lucretia hadn’t noticed them and was drawing slowly towards the figure. Lup was having a hard time moving at all and Barry was stuck to her, grasping her arm once again. 

 

“Lucretia.” Lup spoke softly even though she tried to yell; her voice was crammed down in her throat and no matter how much she struggled, the voice she tried to summon didn’t go past the insides of her mouth and just made her feel like she was trying to breathe too much, that speaking was the most tiring thing she had ever tried to do. She flexed her hands and noticed that the muscles in them were weak and that she couldn’t make a fist. She looked at Barry expectantly until he realized that she wanted him to do something. 

 

Lucretia looked over at the two people that just appeared in the corner of the room from between massive metal beams and wondered who they were. She saw one of them start to walk towards her with a determined pace and she knew she had to get to the thing that was like a shell of dirt held up by loose puppet strings first. She ran to it and she felt like someone wanted to call her name. She looked into the glowing eyes of the being in front of her and she felt like her eyes were filling up with static and going numb from the inside of her head out. She made it and was standing in front of it, with the person from the corner coming after her still. She placed a hand on either side of its head and found small recesses there. She pressed her fingers down onto the recesses and the head clicked. The top of the skull, from above the eyes, opened up like a treasure box and a silvery light poured out and filled the room. She tucked her hands inside and drew out the ball of light that she somehow just — knew was in there. She drew it close to her chest and cradled it, felt its warmth and its promises and her eyes welled up with tears. She started to crumple and fall to the ground when she felt arms around her—

Barry ran to Lucretia while Lup was frozen in place. Everything moved so sluggishly and the air was filled with a tinny taste and feel. As Lucretia started to fall to the ground in front of him, holding the light close to herself, he made it just before her knees could make impact with the floor. He was able to swing an arm around her and grab her by the shoulders and gently kneel down to the ground with her. As she curled further into the light, hiding her face into her folded arms where she cradled it, Barry let go of her and took off his robe. 

 

“Here, Lucretia. Let me take it, it’ll be okay.” 

 

He saw her tense and ball up even more as she sniffed and whimpered a barely audible “no”. He cautiously moved to find her wrists in the huddled up mass that she had become and he pried them away without much resistance from her. The light fell from her grip and on to the floor with a dull thud. He grabbed it up quickly and wrapped it in his robe. 

As soon as the glow of the light was snuffed from the room, the mud-encrusted creature shriveled and broke to pieces, everything that Lup had been trying to yell for the past few moments all echoed through the room as one layered shout, the strings sagged and the swamp sludge began to ooze down the walls and disappear from above them. Walls around them and a ceiling above them seemed to loudly click into place and -- they didn’t appear or manifest or come from nowhere, they had just- always been there. 

 

…

 

Once they stepped out of the door to the shack, Barry felt all of his feelings and emotions rush back with tremendous force. It was like air suddenly filled his lungs again, and he hadn’t even noticed that they had been deflated for hours. They didn’t have Merle, though. They didn’t know where he had gone and all they could do was hope that he hadn’t met with a painful end. 

But they had the light. They didn’t know how much time had passed, but they had it, and they would have to get to work right away. 

 

The sky was clear, the bubbling shadows and eyes were gone, and as they blinked in the bright sunlight, they could hear the welcoming sound of wind and birds instead of foreboding voices.

 

They saw the ship rush towards them and then pass over their heads. They watched it turn sharply, circling as it declined, aiming for a landing spot nearby. Breathlessly, they waited to see exactly where the ship would land, feeling a flood of energy despite the exhaustion, ready to sprint towards it, eager to get back into the arms of their family as fast as possible. 


	41. Life and Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Forty One

 

“Who’s uh -- who’s this person in the corner over here?” Taako pointed to the far corner of the bar while stuffing his mouth with a hunk of soup-soaked bread. Sitting at the table that he pointed to was an elderly woman in thick layers of mismatched robes, facing the wall with an empty glass in front of her. 

 

The bartender continued to dry the cup in his hands with a rag while he looked up to see where Taako was pointing. “Oh, that’s Cremelda. She’s the god of starvation.” 

 

Taako’s eyes went wide and he struggled to quickly swallow his food. “Wait, what? A god? There’s a god that just like, chills in your bar?” 

 

The bartender looked at Taako with confusion, still picking up and drying cups before setting them under the bar. “Well, uh yeah. That’s not how it is where you’re from? I mean, I haven’t traveled very much, but I thought that was normal.”  

 

“Yeah, no. I’d say it’s pretty much not normal.” Taako ripped another chunk of bread off of the loaf on the plate in front of him. “What do they do then? If they’re just regular flesh-dudes, hanging out in bars and shit, do they even do, y’know -- god stuff?” 

 

The bartender shrugged, confused by Taako’s question. “They all just kinda do their own thing. They help some people or make stuff. Some of them are a little eccentric -- well they’re all pretty eccentric, but some keep to themselves or hang out in weird places, and others just live in the cities with everyone else.” 

 

“Okay, so god of starvation? Really the greatest god to have in your bar?”

 

“Well, she  _ helps  _ the starved. She doesn’t  _ create  _ starvation. I don’t think I would let her in my bar if she made everyone starve to death. Wouldn’t be good for the ol stew business, ya know? Shit, unless she could make people just  _ kinda _ hungry… hmmm.”

 

Taako rolled his eyes and swallowed another bite of food. “Look, I’m not here to help you come up with ideas on how to scam your patrons; can you tell me more about these gods of yours and whether or not there would be any who are good at -- shit, I don’t know,  _ finding  _ stuff?” 

 

The bartender pursed his lips and cocked an eyebrow. “What kind of stuff? There’s a couple gods I know that can definitely hook you up with some good, uhh… with some,” he motioned to the corner of his eye, tapping the edge twice. 

 

Taako glared at the bartender. “Yeah, I don’t know what kind of illegal shit you’re putting in your eyes here, we’re looking for a uh- well I guess you could say a really fucking strong magical item.” 

 

“Ooh, well.” The bartender, done with drying, flipped his dish rag over his shoulder and leaned over, giving Taako his full attention. “How much is this thing worth?” 

 

“Yeah, no, you’re not getting any drug money out of this thing, so cool your jets. It’s a dangerous ball of light basically, and it’s super annoying and not worth shit and we’re doing you all a huge favor if we get it out of here.” 

 

The bartender narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms while leaning back away from Taako, his body language suddenly distrusting. “Hmm. Well, if it’s so dangerous, how do I know you’re not going to cause us uh, cause us some grief, huh?”

 

Taako tilted his head. “Lenny-”

 

“It’s  _ Lennton.” _

 

“Yes, of course. Look Lennton, I have no reason to lie to you. This thing sucks, and me and my friends only want to help. Do I seem like the type to be dangerous to you?”

 

The bartender uncrossed his arms and gesticulated widely. “Shit, I don’t know you. You could be the Storm Lagoon Killer for all I know.” 

 

Taako raised an eyebrow. “I -- uh wow, I can promise you that I’m not, but that story sounds like it’s probably cool as hell and as soon as you can give me a lead on who to talk to about finding shit around here, I would love to hear all about that thing that you just said.”  

 

…

 

Taako threw open the ship door and walked into the common room, announcing his presence, as usual, by diving straight into what he had to say without warning. 

“Listen up, chumps. First of all, there's a serial killer that’s been operating around here for oh, the equivalent of around twenty years. Also, there’s a god in some artsy town north of here that is apparently real in tune with magical shit in this world.” 

 

Davenport, sitting across from Merle at the dining table, twirled the end of his mustache. “And how do we find this god and get it to help us?”

 

Magnus stiffened at Taako’s announcement, his face at once concerned. “There’s a serial killer!?” 

 

Lucretia clasped her hands together excitedly. “Ooh, art town!” 

 

The rest of the crew turned to look at her. Taako gave her a side-long glance, raising a questioning eyebrow.  

“That was your takeaway from all of that?” 

Lucretia froze for a second and then folded her hands back on her lap and straightened her back, looking indignant. “Well,  _ obviously  _ we’re going to talk about all of the other stuff. I just didn’t want that part to get lost in the kerfuffle.” 

 

Taako waved his hand, batting away the words that got in the way of his line of thought. “Kerfuffle, got it, anyways check it out: let’s go find this god, get the light, and then get back here so that I can get more of Lenny’s cooking. Dude’s an asshole but his food is good as hell.” 

 

***

 

Lup sleepily sauntered into the kitchen, on her way to raid leftovers from the dinner that Taako had cooked earlier that evening. When she turned the corner into the kitchen from the hallway, she saw Barry with his hair a mess, looking groggy and unsteady on his feet, filling a glass with water. When he shut off the faucet and turned to leave, Lup was standing in front of him and he almost leapt out of his skin. 

 

“Shit, o-oh -- hey uh, hi Lup.” Barry tried to quickly recover; he was hoping she wouldn’t see him so frazzled, and especially not startled and nervous on top of that. But of course, most of the times that he did end up running into her in the middle of the night were the times that he felt least prepared for an encounter. 

 

Lup shook her head and laughed softly. “I promise I didn’t mean to scare you. Was just bad timing.” 

 

Barry nodded and smiled looking down at the ground as he did. She saw a flash of something go across his face, and it almost looked like he got a bit sad for just a moment. But then, he looked back up at her, smiling again. It -- felt to her like he wanted to say something. But she wasn’t going to press him; they had been having a lot of residual eeriness, some lingering bad memories from the year before. In fact, she reasoned that that might have been why he was up -- he was probably trying to shake off a nightmare. She looked at him warmly, affectionately, and then realized that nothing had been said for maybe a little bit too long. 

“You wanna -- I mean, did you need to get right back to sleep? Or, I was gonna go out on the deck, if you wanted...” 

“Y-yeah!” Barry jumped at the invitation, more eagerly than he meant to. Lup smiled wide at his enthusiasm and led the way.

 

…

 

It took so much effort to fix his gaze on the sky. He could feel himself drifting frequently, wanting to look at Lup. He had woken up from a dream just before she found him in the kitchen; a  dream about her. The past weeks had been filled with nightmares, but that night he dreamt of Lup. It wasn’t anything elaborate, just sitting with her. Sitting with her outside in pleasant weather, their fingers tangled together. He woke up with his heart thumping; he wasn’t able to get back to sleep. He felt silly, and even a little guilty for being so worked up over a dream like that -- but then he allowed himself to just enjoy a good feeling. Especially after their previous year, he needed to bask something nice. 

 

Standing next to Barry, Lup sighed and he instinctively looked over at her, forgetting that he was trying not to. 

“Is -- everything okay, Lup?”

 

“Yeah, just…” Lup trailed off, still looking up at the sky. She shook off whatever it was that made her lose her train of thought and turned to Barry. “I feel like we haven’t had a good old fashioned expedition in forever, you know? Some hiking, camping, cataloguing, mapping, flora, fauna, that whole deal? We should, y’know -- do our thing and write stacks of notes for this place.” 

 

Barry blushed and looked down at his hands. “Yeah, that would be really nice. We should do that.” 

 

“Yeah. It would be nice.” Lup turned back to lean on the railing and looked up. “We can make a plan of action after breakfast tomorrow.” 

 

Barry smiled. He felt so warm. He looked back up as well, feeling very happy that she wanted to work with him, that she wanted it to be just the two of them on one of their research trips, the trips that he treasured so much. Happy that she wanted to spend that kind of time with him, that she trusted in his capabilities and his work to go on trips like that with him alone, even after everything they had gone through and seen over the years. He was already full of anticipation -- he couldn’t wait to have fun with her, to see her mind at work, her excitement in taking notes and cataloguing their finds, the care she took in trying to piece together some sense about the worlds they explored. And for every night they would be gone, it would be a night of them having dinner with just each other. He loved getting to have those times as well as the times on the deck; time where it was only them and there was room for them to talk about anything. 

 

“Barry?”

 

Barry broke out of his thoughts at the sound of her voice. “Yeah Lup?”

 

She inhaled slowly and when she exhaled, he swore he could hear sadness just from how she breathed. She was looking down over the railing to the ground below them. She kept her head turned away from him as she spoke.

 

“We -- I don’t want to… I want to try not to get uh, get attached. To anyone. Like um…” Lup inhaled again, preparing to say more but not knowing how to place her words. Barry felt like a bucket of ice water was poured over him; he didn’t know what she was talking about, but it sounded like -- did she find out? Was that  _ it?  _ She knew and she was trying to let him down… he thought he had been so careful, but also he knew how hard it was to hide. Gods, he wondered exactly when it was that he fucked up, how how how- he was breathless as he waited for her to continue.  

 

Lup’s shoulders sagged. “Sorry, it’s just that -- I’m sure you’ve already thought the same thing, it’s not really something that needs to be said, I guess. And it’s not like there’ll be anything we can do about it if the same situation does come up again, but I just want to say that I really -- I really don’t want to get attached again, like we did that one time. Like we did with Fen.” 

 

Barry felt the ice that had paralyzed his lungs leave him, but the feeling of panic was replaced with sadness. She looked up at him finally, searching his expression as he stared off into the distance, hoping that she hadn’t made him too sad. She just needed to say -- something. They had so much they needed to be doing, so much that was weighing on them emotionally already. Adding anything to that or getting wrapped up in situations that took their focus elsewhere wasn’t useful to anyone. Not to them, not to the worlds they inhabited. Barry was silent. Lup set a hand on his shoulder. He finally looked over at her and saw at once through her eyes how heavy her heart was. He awkwardly looped his arm under hers to pat her back. 

“Yeah, I -- I get that. We won’t get that involved again. We’ll stay focused.” 

They both withdrew their arms and confined themselves to their spaces next to each other. Lup was absentmindedly nodding and went back to looking off into the distance. And she wondered if there ever would be a time where her and Barry could allow themselves to care about and care for others — and maybe even care for others  _ together  _ — outside of their desperate little family. 

 

***

 

After a little less than an hour flight north, the crew arrived at the town of Povaii. The town was known for its arts and crafts and was the location of a prestigious fine arts school. It was also where a certain god of art that they were in pursuit of lived.  

 

Davenport and Magnus exited a pottery shop where they had just found out their first bit of information about the god. 

“So,” Davenport paused outside of the shop to talk to Magnus before they continued through the city. “We’re looking for someone who leaves behind multicolored footsteps and wears a lot of gaudy patterned suits. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?” 

 

“I don’t know about that.” Magnus surveyed their surroundings, indicating towards the outlandish appearance of the crowds of people around them with everyone dressed in layers of clashing colors and patterns.

 

Davenport nodded as he looked around along with Magnus. “Well, at least everyone isn’t leaving behind glowing footprints. I suppose we’ll just focus on looking for that.” 

 

“Sounds good, Cap’nPort. Magnus grinned and turned heel, walking into the crowd to start searching. Davenport hurried to follow after him before losing him in the throngs of outrageously stylized people. They both scanned the ground as they moved through the crowds, and pressed forward to visit any other shops or restaurants they could in order to gather more information. On their way into a pub, they passed by Lup who had stopped in front of a shop that caught her attention. 

 

The windows of the shop were lined with silver strings bearing lavender lights, glass orbs perched on gold circlets that were patterned with designs of animals and flowers, white stone sculptures, paintings of fantastical landscapes, and all manner of sparkling and twinkling decor. Lup dipped into the door, drawn by the flashy displays and also figuring that it was just as likely of a place for the god to be as anywhere else. 

 

Lup stared wide-eyed as she walked into the store that could be best described as a pretty mess. There was no organization or sense to any of what was available for sale, different sizes and types of bulbs flashed or faded in and out in varying patterns, shelves were lined with random objects, no two things the same. The shop owner sat in the far back, flipping through a book, and barely noticed Lup’s existence. There was no one else in the store, meaning there was no god there, but Lup just had to keep looking anyways, just for a few minutes. She perused the shelves and tables, examining their contents, turning over large crystals in her hands, marveling at the shifting colors and bubbles of water inside the solid stones. Eventually, she came across what looked like a basket filled with flat stars made of frosted glass. She picked up a couple and looked them over, feeling their matte surface. They glowed very faintly. She cupped her hand around one and peered inside and saw how strongly it glowed in the dark. There was a row of small glass bottles of adhesive that sat next to the basket, looking like they were meant to go together. She inhaled and raised her eyebrows, excited upon realizing that they were for decorating a room with, so that you could have your ceiling glow with little stars at night. And she thought about Barry, about the time they occasionally got to spend under the stars together. She picked up more and placed them into her open palm, smiling to herself over how much the little pile of glowing stars made her think of Barry. She thought that maybe he would like them, that maybe he would want them in his room so that he could see the stars on the nights where he was too tired from working all day to go out on the deck. And then he could go to sleep under them every night. She grabbed one of the little velvety drawstring bags that sat next to the basket and filled it with as many of the stars as she could fit inside. 

 

…

 

An opportunity never came up for the rest of the day for Lup to give Barry the stars. She didn’t want to do it with others around, and with them all collaborating on finding a god, they didn’t end up getting a moment alone. Then dinner came and afterwards everyone lingered and talked in the common room. The night went on and first Lucretia, then Davenport, and then Merle said goodnight to the rest of the crew. Barry eventually almost started to nod off on the couch before getting up and saying goodnight to Lup, Magnus and Taako. Lup tried to not be annoyed about the fact that Taako and Magnus were still up; she was having fun talking with them and being around them, of course. But she was just particularly excited to get Barry alone for a minute to give him her gift. 

But then, she started to think about it more and it seemed a little silly. Maybe she was too excited over it just because they had reminded her of him, and they weren’t really that big of a deal. It even might have been something too childish for him. Or, what if it came off as something kind of -- romantic. She froze up at the thought and was at once glad that she didn’t get the chance to give them to him before thinking it through more.

 

She did still  _ really  _ want to give them to him though… and she got her chance the next day, finally. Most of the others had gone back into the town, but her and Barry planned on hanging back for a bit and joining them later after working on some already running tests in the lab that needed attending to. And she figured out a way to change her approach to hopefully reduce the potential of the gesture being -- strange. 

 

Lup entered the lab and Barry was already there, getting started on setting up their work. 

“Hey, Bear!” Lup sat in her chair next to Barry and rolled over closer to him, holding out the open bag of stars so that he could see inside. 

“I got these to put up in my room but I got way too many. Did you maybe want some of them?” Seeing the confused look on Barry’s face, Lup elaborated and tried not to lose her nerve, resisting the temptation to just say ‘nevermind’ and run off. “You stick them onto your ceiling… so that it’s like… like stars. When it’s dark. They glow, and stuff.” 

 

“Oh!” Barry’s face lit up and Lup felt relieved. Why would she think that Barry wouldn’t like something like that? He was fun and he loved small things the same way that she did. “That’s -- that’s really cool, Lup, t-thank you. Yeah, I’ll put these up as soon as I can!” 

 

Lup paid close attention to the look on his face. He seemed really genuinely happy about her small gift, and she was glad that she got them for him. It was well worth getting to see that face, getting to hear his warm ‘thank you’. He even seemed a little flustered; she knew he wasn’t used to getting gifts for no reason. Gods, he was so sweet. She wanted to start getting him little gifts all of the time, picking up every single thing that ever made her think about him.

He really did seem to like them. She wondered if maybe she should have asked to help him put them up, but then decided against it; he would ask if he did want help. 

 

…

 

Once Barry left the lab and went to his room, he carried Lup’s gift with him, holding the bag of stars like it was the most fragile thing he had ever touched. It had taken so much for him to act as calmly as he did about Lup giving them to him. Even though they were just leftovers from her own decorations, she could have given them to anyone else; but she wanted him to have them. They were both going to have a sky full of stars in their individual bedrooms to look up at before bed and -- in some tiny way it was like falling asleep under the stars together. Really, it wasn’t that  _ at all, _ he knew that but still; he couldn’t help but feel like it connected them in some way. 

He took his time gingerly and intentionally placing each star on his ceiling. He wondered how Lup had arranged hers, wondered what their individual, personal night skies looked like compared to each other. 

 

***

 

Lucretia and Davenport returned to the Starblaster from their most recent walk around the town. Davenport had Lucretia gather the rest of the crew so that he could pass along their news. 

 

“Well, we found the god. Their name is Osus. And they’re not the most talkative type. But they said they would search around with us. Barry and Lup; you mentioned at breakfast that you were thinking about going on a surveying trip soon, weren’t you? Maybe you could take along the god and make it a search for the light at the same time?” 

 

“Yeah, you got it Cap’n.” Lup made a small, casual saluting gesture towards Davenport as she agreed to his suggestion. But inside, she was disappointed; she wanted to go with Barry alone. Instead, they were going to have some stranger with them. But, it was good; they were getting the things done that they needed to, and anyways, she had been trying to get her head straight. Spending several days completely alone with Barry probably wouldn’t have helped her to focus up. 

 

Davenport gave Lup a small, grateful nod, then looked over the rest of the crew. “While they’re out, we can do our own searches around the area as well, just in case. We’ll keep them short, keep them safe, and go in turns. We’re still early in the year, but I’m feeling good about this one. We can go over more details later -- for now, I believe that it is getting close to dinner time, and I think we have reason enough to celebrate a little bit. It’s a short enough hop back to the last town, if you’d all like to go to uh -- what was it, Len-”

 

Taako threw both of his hands up into the air. “Lenny’s! Fuck yeah, let’s get going. I kinda almost miss that jerk.” 

 

***

 

Osus only watched silently when Barry and Lup started to set up camp; Lup found them unsettling, but at least she wasn’t alone with them. The god walked up to a nearby tree and casually scaled it in an animalistic sort of shimmy, their glowing multicolored footsteps stuck to the ground at the base of the tree, very slowly fading away. They huddled up and perched like an owl on a branch, drawing their knees in close and wrapping their arms around them, inexplicably balancing perfectly on the rounded branch. They sat on the heels of their dress shoes, the zigzagged pattern of their suit connecting at the arms and legs to make them look  like one small ball of the busy pattern. Barry and Lup continued to set up their camp and their fire and sat down to eat. 

 

Lup started putting together skewers of vegetables for them to heat over the fire. “Weird having company, huh?” 

 

“Hah, yeah. I guess it’s good to have the help, but…” Barry shrugged and trailed off. Lup looked back down at the food she was preparing, smiling to herself knowing that Barry also would have preferred to be alone with her. 

 

“Well,” Lup propped the skewers on top of the metal prongs on either side of the fire, “I guess that just means we’ll have to go on another trip, soon.” 

Once she was done setting up the skewers, she looked up at Barry. His heart stopped at the sight of her hunched over on the other side of the fire, peeking up at him over the top of the flames, the orange glow dancing across her face and being reflected brightly in her eyes. She smiled and he wondered how he could possibly continue to exist in a reality where he talked to her and looked at her and didn’t spill something that would expose him. He was almost starting to resign himself to the fact that it was going to happen someday. He would get caught looking at her too long or in a certain way or he would say something without thinking. He would be mortified, he would be scared about what would come next, but it was almost certainly going to eventually happen. He just had to accept that. 

 

…

 

Osus, while walking ahead of Barry and Lup on the winding trail that cut through the dense forest, suddenly stopped. They straightened their back and looked around, scanning the horizon. Then spoke to Lup and Barry in a clear, musical voice.

 

“It’s on the island.” 

 

Lup perked up, feeling almost as if she had been dozing off on her feet. “What was that?” 

 

Osus turned around, their hands folded over one another, looking just as blankly serious as they had for the entirety of their trip. “There’s the water’s edge up ahead. Not far out, there is an island. There is an item with a great magical aura coming off of it. I believe that is the item that you’re seeking. But I cannot go to the island.” 

 

Barry tilted his head. “Wait, why not? Is it uh -- dangerous over there?”

 

“It is not my place to walk. Another one of us walks there .” 

 

Barry nodded, a little taken off-guard. “Alright. Well… thanks? I guess we’ll take it from here.”

 

Osus looked back and forth between the two of them, face blank, and walked away, back into  the direction they came from. 

 

“Well.” Lup shifted her backpack. “Looks like we’re on our own.”

  
  


Once they were closer to the water, they saw a small wooden platform at the edge. Upon approaching the miniature dock, they saw standing at the edge a shirtless man with a sunken chest, his body burnt by the sun and his face dotted with cavernous pock marks. A cat was curled up on top of the post next to him, and he was idly petting its head as he looked out at the water. 

 

He said very little to them and seemed uninterested in answering any questions about the island, or about why he was there on a tiny dock that existed in the middle of nothing. But, he encouraged them to take one of the boats that he had tied to a post. The boat was just big enough for the two of them and their packs. The island was visible from the dock and looked fairly easy to get to; as strange as things seemed, it was at least all working out. They rowed the boat together and made fast work of the short trip, talking and laughing as they went. Lup sat behind Barry and tried not to notice the muscles working under his shirt as he put his full strength into rowing. She focused on her own oars, on the feeling of pushing the water and whisking it away behind them, distracting herself from the threat of warmth filling her cheeks and the tips of her ears. 

 

It was overcast outside and a little muggy, so by the time they were getting close, they were feeling overheated and acutely aware of their breathing becoming ragged and heavy from the humidity. Once they were closing in on the island, a heavy fog began to roll out from the shore and over the water and they found themselves engulfed in an airless, stifling cloud. 

 

***

 

“Was another murder yesterday.” Lennton casually wiped down the bar counter while he talked to Taako, Davenport, and Magnus, who were all taking their time with the food set out in front of them. Magnus was at once gravely concerned. 

 

“Who was it? Where did it happen?”

 

“Was the Storm Lagoon Killer. Body was found in the woods near the Storm Lagoon, as usual. Hence the name.” 

 

Magnus furrowed his brow. “Is anyone close to catching this person?” He looked back and forth between Taako and Davenport seated on either side of him. “Do you think we could help? Can we do something about this?” 

 

Davenport shrugged, looking apprehensive. “That might not be the best use of our time.” 

 

“Ooh, unless mayhaps there’s a cash reward.” Taako leaned over the counter to look around Magnus’s large frame and catch Davenport’s attention. “We can always use more local currency, right Cap?” Without waiting for an answer, Taako straightened in his seat and waved Lennton over. 

“Hey, Lenny, so-”

 

“It’s  _ Lennton.” _

 

“If you say so. Lennton, would you happen to know if there’s any sort of bounty for this freak?” 

 

“I’ve heard that some of the families of the victims have put somethin’ together. Don’t know a whole lot about it, though.” 

 

“Cool cool, super helpful as usual.” Taako leaned over the counter again and turned to talk to Davenport, not catching the sneer on Lennton’s face. “Let’s follow up on that, yeah? Then Maggie here can get his fix of helping people, and maybe we can squeeze some more resources out of this place in the process.” 

 

***

 

On the island, Barry and Lup at once saw that everything about it was -- wrong. The soil was spongy and black, the trees were without leaves and there was a dark rot that was creeping up their trunks from the ground. They seemed to grow out at odd angles, as if they were freed from their roots and sinking into the dirt. The fog was thick on the ground, reaching up to their knees, and the temperature there was a few degrees colder than it had been just before they met the shore. Lup dug at the ground with her foot, testing its lack of firmness. 

 

“Gonna have a hell of a time setting up camp on this. But, we’d have to find the light like, now if we wanted to sail back before it gets dark.” 

 

“Wouldn’t be any fun if it was easy, huh?” Barry smiled at Lup before looking back out at the blackened, rotting forest ahead of them and dropping his smile with a sigh, feeling tired just from looking at it. 

 

They pressed forward through the fog pouring in waves over the shore, their every step a fight against the sinking ground. They soon found a very faint and narrow trail opening at the edge of the barren woods. 

 

After an hour into their walk, Lup stopped in front of a tree trunk and swung her pack off, plopping it on top of the trunk so that she could sift through it. She pulled out a cloth bag of dried fruit that was part of the cautiously generous two week supply of rations they had brought along  with them. When she undid the tie around the top of the bag and opened it though, all she found inside was a black, gelatinous sludge. 

 

“Hey, what the fuck?” 

 

Barry looked over Lup’s shoulder to see what was happening and was startled at the sight of the bag full of black ooze. Lup turned to look at him, still holding the bag in her hands. “I’m pretty sure that I didn’t pack this.” She dropped the bag to the ground and went rummaging through her pack for a different container of food, only to find that it had also turned into a black jelly-like substance. Barry swung his pack to the ground and started to pull out supplies and they soon found that they had no food between them. They looked over the rest of their equipment and found nothing wrong and even their water was fine. But everything that was edible that they had brought with them had melted. 

 

Barry closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. They had a lead on the light, he was actually feeling motivated to work on it when they got it, but without food they were going to have to turn back. The small island they were on had nothing to forage -- there didn’t seem to be anything alive there at all. They would have to sail back and either hike far enough to look for food, or call on the ship to come meet them and then go back to the island after all of that in order to continue looking. But, at that point, there wasn’t much else to be done. 

 

They turned back and trudged along the trail and talked over what to do next They eventually decided on getting in touch with Davenport and having him bring the ship around to meet them back at the shore of the mainland; they felt confident enough in their navigation from Povaii to there to give Davenport directions that would get them at least approximately in the same area. Barry grabbed his stone out of his pocket, swiped a thumb over the surface, and raised it up to speak into it. But nothing came through. When he tried speaking into it, there was an undertone of hushed static behind his voice as the stone seemed to struggle to pick up his words. Lup dropped her shoulders and rolled her head back, looking up at the treetops and sighing heavily, wondering what the fuck was happening to them that time around. 

 

***

 

Magnus and Taako walked through the woods, following the directions they had been given to Storm Lagoon. They had a hard time convincing Davenport that they should go after a serial killer and even though they won out in the end, he was still nervously fidgeting when they left and reminded them more than once to check in with him frequently. 

Once they had met with more people and found out that the killer’s modus operandi was strangulation, Taako felt confident that they were highly unlikely to become victims; he had magic and Magnus had a neck like a log of wood. It was just some regular-ass dude being evil out in the middle of nowhere and they were going to go kick their ass or blow them up or whatever -- easy peasy. Once it was over, Magnus would be happy, they’d have done something good for that world, they’d stock up on supplies, Barry and Lup would be back with the light and then Taako would be able to spend a good portion of their remaining time just kickin’ it at Lenny’s. It was the makings of a mostly tolerable year. 

 

As they closed in on the side of the woods closest to the lagoon, a heavy mist started trickling in between the trees, growing thicker and thicker until it was completely obscuring the ground. After they had both stubbed a toe on the occasional rock or stump a couple of times each, Taako got fed up and reached into the inside pocket of his robe for his wand. Summoning a tightly controlled gust of wind, he chased away the swirling fog from the forest floor. With the area around them cleared and safe to walk through, they pressed forward, with Taako ready to clear away more fog whenever they reached some. They stepped into a small clearing between the trees that was completely filled in with solid white mist, and they could just barely make out the tops of a couple of tents. Taako once again began to clear away the floor in front of them, and his heart stopped at the scene that revealed itself. There were two tents -- the same tents that were used by the crew. There was a firepit outside of the tents and Taako recognized it at  once as being Lup’s signature method of constructing a campfire. Not only that, but it looked like it had very recently been extinguished. Taako felt a cold chill run through him, but he reasoned that just because they were camping in the same woods on their search didn’t mean that they had run into the killer; in fact, maybe they were close by, foraging or taking notes on something. If anyone had tried to fuck with them, Taako had no doubts that Lup would have incinerated whoever it was from the inside out. But, once the clearing was completely rid of fog, he noticed the last concerning detail of the scene; a slowly fading trail of multicolored footsteps originating from the base of a tree nearby and leading into and then out of the first tent, into and out of the next, and then off into the woods. 

With a pained expression, Magnus looked over at Taako briefly before approaching the tent closest to them and looking inside. Taako stayed glued to the spot on the edge of the campsite and waited for Magnus to look back at him, for his face to tell him what was inside the tent. And when he did turn around and look at Taako, his expression told him everything he needed to know. Taako’s stomach turned with a toxic mix of grief and anger. Without a word and without looking into either tent for himself, he went stalking after the fading line of footsteps, determined to destroy the god at the end of them. 

 

***

 

Lup was shaking. With… fear or anger or something else, she couldn’t exactly pinpoint the particular emotion she was feeling. Just, wrong. Just,  _ why?  _

Barry rubbed at his temples, closed his eyes for a moment, opened them to look again, inhaled slowly, then deflated. They had just exited the black woods, out from the same narrow trailhead where they had entered, and were greeted by the sight of an empty shore. Their boat was gone. And the fog was so thick, they couldn’t see if it was maybe floating nearby. The fog was much,  _ much  _ heavier than when they had arrived. They couldn’t see anything outside of the island; the nearby land, the water past a few feet out, the sky... nothing. 

 

Lup tensed, balled up her hands, and marched to the edge of the water. Barry watched as she planted her feet and her silhouette went rigid and defiant against the fog rolling around her. She put her arms out in front of her and raised her palms, gearing up to blow a hole through the fog with bursts of flame. But nothing happened. Her hair waved gently in a wind that wasn’t there and Barry looked on with confusion when he saw that her robe was suddenly caught in a strong breeze that he couldn’t feel. She stood, shocked, her hands still out in front of her, producing nothing. She held her breath and closed her eyes hard before dropping her hands and turning around to walk back over to Barry, looking at her feet the whole time. Once she was standing in front of him, she looked up and gasped when she saw his face. The fog was coming in thicker around them, and it was difficult to see, but she was sure that Barry was less -- less  _ there.  _ She reached out to set a palm against his shoulder and felt only light resistance as her hand phased into him. 

 

“Fuck! Barry…” 

Barry’s eyes went wide when he felt her touch only barely fall against him before it became an icy spear going through him. He reflexively grabbed at the spot on his shoulder and came in contact with Lup’s wrist for only a second before his hand was grasping around inside of her arm. They moved their hands away and stepped back from each other. Before they could say anything or process what was happening though, they heard what sounded like the pained screams of an animal coming from behind them, down the trail that they had just returned from. They looked at each other and wordlessly decided together to turn and hurry towards the noise; it was the only new thing to investigate in a world that was slowly disappearing around them. 

 

When they had gone a few minutes down the trail, they stopped short at the sight of what looked like a hunch-backed wolf with sunken eyes and a body so emaciated that they could see every rib and vertebrae. It ran off as soon as it noticed Lup and Barry, leaving behind a tattered carcass of a rabbit lying in the middle of the trail. They looked down at the small thing, half devoured -- that must have been what they heard screaming. As they looked at it with pity, they saw a slight movement. Something inside of the partially exposed rib cage started pulsating, and then a clearish jelly started to rise from between the bones, eventually covering them. The jelly started to turn more and more opaque and its surface became oily. It started to churn and twist and form a wet, pinkish opalescent surface that was quickly sucked back into the oily substance and then turned inside out, revealing patches of fur. The empty and exposed parts of the corpse filled in and were covered with fur completely, and then the sagging body suddenly breathed in and expanded and the eyes popped open, revealing bright yellow, featureless orbs. The color leaked out of the eyes and turned to ribbons of yellow fabric that unspooled and grew, wrapping around the rabbit until it was completely hidden in coils of wrinkled cloth. The bundle glowed from within and started to grow upward, until it was nearly as tall as they were. A few layers of ribbon peeled off and revealed the face of an old woman, leaving the rest of her covered in heavy layers of mismatched robes. Her eyes remained closed even as she seemed to be carefully looking over Lup and Barry. 

 

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry.” 

 

Barry tried to form words, but was only able to open his mouth a bit before Lup shook her head and vocalized their thoughts for the both of them. 

 

“Wha-… sorry?”

 

The old woman, still with tightly closed eyes, expressed her empathy to them through her soft expression. 

“You were killed.” 

 

Barry and Lup looked at each other, as if they would be able to see what it was that she meant. Lup turned back to the old woman with a look of confusion.

 

“That’s… that can’t be right, we- well, we know what happens when we die, and it’s not this.” 

 

The woman hummed a bit under her breath. “I see. Unfortunately, not everyone’s beliefs are always true.”

 

Lup shook her head. “No, no, I mean -- we’ve died before. And this isn’t what happens.” 

 

The old woman raised her head a bit and looked directly at Lup with closed eyes. 

“Oh. You’ve died and lived more than once?”

 

Lup nodded. 

 

“And what do you do with that power?”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

The old woman rustled in her layers of robes, like a bird settling into a nest. “When you have the power to sacrifice yourself endlessly, you can serve without second thought, give selflessly, have nothing to lose.” She gestured around her, “The dead don’t ever  _ really  _ leave; they just come here. The living can’t know that, though, so there’s no way for them to prepare. They end up scared and unable to help anyone, help themselves. Having the knowledge that you can live and die and live again means that you could prepare. Being a god means that I can live and die and remember. I remember every time my body is destroyed, I remember that I can have that body back and that it can be destroyed again. That is why you found me feeding the starving worg with my flesh. When a body is disposable and death isn’t permanent, it opens up paths you never thought possible to helping others. Some might use that power, that knowledge for harm. I hope that is not what you do.” 

  
  
  


Barry thought about the god’s words. Were they using their incredible circumstance to its fullest potential? Was there maybe more he could be doing? What else might he and Lup be able to do if they applied their scientific methods to their unique arrangement with life and death? He wasn’t into the thought of feeding animals with their dead bodies, but maybe there was something more fitting -- and less stomach-turning -- that they could come up with. He caught Lup’s eyes and could see the gears spinning in her own head and wondered if she was going over the same thoughts as he was. 

 

...

 

Lup and Barry spent the rest of their year on the island with Cremelda, the god of starvation. They came into contact with other lost souls, but only briefly; no one wanted to accept what had happened to them. They were avoidant and spent their time frantically trying to find ways to leave the island. 

 

Lup felt trapped… they  _ were  _ trapped, not being able to leave the island because outside of it they didn’t exist. It was strange, experiencing death in such a different way, a lingering way, rather than just popping back onto the ship. It gave her endless time to stress over the others, over Taako. Time dragged by, every minute was spent wondering if everyone else was okay, if they were going to make it through the year, or if they would be there forever. 

She wanted to be back on the ship. She wanted to be with her brother. She wanted to be in her bed, under an artificial sky full of stars. She looked over at Barry and smiled weakly. He smiled back. They sat next to each other, and even though they had lost the ability to feel anything, Lup placed a hand over Barry’s. And, even though he had no blood or pulse, he felt the phantom sensation of his face burning up and his heart quickening at the mere suggestion of her touch. 

  
  



	42. There Will Come Soft Rains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Forty Two

 

Taako gasped for air, wide eyed and with his heart threatening to burst from his chest. A split second before he was reassembled on the Starblaster, he had been holding his breath, looking over the edge of a cliffside to confirm that a certain god was dead. 

He had spent the last couple months of the year hunting the deity down, neglecting all other work to do so. Once the rest of the crew found the light, he redoubled his efforts; knowing that the god had a chance at survival meant that he  _ had  _ to kill them before time was up. It was just as the Hunger was arriving that he had finally cornered them. He ignored the calls from Davenport on his stone and marched at the god who was backed up against a cliff. They darted to the side, but Taako, without flinching, flung a hand upward, drawing jagged stones from the ground, blocking their way. Before they could make their way around the stones and away from the cliff edge, Taako used blink, ignoring his nervousness about the scouts in the ethereal plane, and was in front of the god within a fraction of a second, fire in his eyes and adrenaline flooding his heart as he used his bare hands to shove the god off of the cliff. 

As he had learned during that year, the gods of that world weren’t infallible and they weren’t invincible. Their corporeal bodies could be destroyed like anyone else’s; the only thing that made them considered gods by the people was that they had more power at their disposal than the average person, usually some set of specific magic that represented a certain ideal or concept. But whatever that god’s powers were, they weren’t enough to keep them from being dashed against the sharp rocks at the bottom of a steep cliff as Taako stared down, panting and shaking, making sure that the god didn’t move. Once Davenport had steered the Starblaster through the barrier of the planar system, Taako was back onboard the ship, looking at his sister. But the moment he had just been in was so vivid, so visceral, that he felt a shockwave run through him as soon as he was put back together. 

It felt -- wrong. Hunting someone down and killing them like that. He knew it was for the better; he avenged his sister and also most likely prevented more murders. But knowing that didn’t keep the memory of the sickening rush of that moment from occasionally crawling into his head for a while after their regeneration. Desperately holding onto his sister helped, though.

 

***

 

Merle sat on the edge of a partially buried, long defunct piece of machinery, staring at a massive rusted metal tube that sat on the ground a little bit further out in the junkyard. It was lying on its side, allowing the wind to race through it, creating a powerfully haunting bellow that echoed throughout the lifeless world. 

 

It was obvious that it had been populated at one point in time; pretty heavily populated judging by what they saw. There was scarcely a space on the planet’s surface that hadn’t been developed and filled with buildings or machinery or trash. But every building was empty and crumbling, the machines were unattended and their moving parts had rusted together or broken off. It was a world that looked like it had once been noisy, full of constant movement and chaos; but by the time they got there, it was still and quiet, except for the wind. 

The world felt like a graveyard in a way; cities were marked with the eery quietude of reverent structures that were symbolic of a place that was once alive. The seven of them were the only ones there to observe the monuments of the past, the only eyes that could see the final outcome of mistakes that had been made, the only beating hearts on the planet, the only people that could wonder what it all meant. 

 

What Merle found the most intriguing was the way that nature was taking everything back; ground that had been laid with stone or paved over with cement so that it would be smooth and featureless had since erupted, lifted and fragmented by determined trees with roots ruthless in their search for water. Fences had collapsed from the weight of fruit-bearing vines growing on them en masse, homes were redecorated in carpets of moss and scaly patches of lichen. And in all of the spaces that had been made grey and hard and metal, flowering plants found their opportunities in every crack and added sweeping rows of color throughout the hollowed out hulls of massive vehicles and the skeletal metal frames of toppled warehouses. Whoever it was that had once inhabited the planet, all of their destruction and the changes that they forced so brutally on a soft, green world was nothing compared to nature’s tireless tenacity and miraculous ability to heal and reclaim.

Maybe if the long-gone inhabitants of that planet had been followers of Pan, they wouldn’t have ultimately been wiped out. It was too bad that the crew didn’t have the chance to make it to that world earlier in its history so that he could have at least taken a crack at influencing them for the better.

Merle stood up and began to walk back to the ship. He had promised to beat Davenport at cards that night, and no amount of reflection or taking in the sights of their new world was going to keep him from doing just that.

 

***

 

Magnus escorted Lucretia around the area they had landed in. Everything was all at once soft and sharp with bundles of wire and rusted, broken metal panels poking out from plush mounds of moss. Magnus was, as usual, deeply concerned for everyone’s safety, and with Lucretia being extremely interested in piecing together what she could about the history of the planet, she wanted to get out and examine the landscape as much as possible. So, Magnus had to follow. Or, more accurately he took it on himself to follow. 

 

From what Lucretia was able to gather, the planet, or at least the city they were in, had once relied almost exclusively on kinetic energy; every bit of machinery that she and Magnus found was pieced together in a way that looked like it was powered by a series of chain reactions originating from levers, cranks, and pulley systems, mostly working to build momentum with differently weighted parts. Lucretia spent a good amount of time drawing any intact pieces of machinery that she could find and thoroughly studying the system through which the advanced-looking machinery operated. The form of energy used was all at once simple in its origin, and yet mechanically complicated in its execution. It was fascinating.

 

From their hours flying around the planet, surveying their new world, they could see that any forests that may have once been there had been entirely cleared out. Trees were obviously native to the planet though, because there they were, growing once again. Some of them were even growing up from underneath scraps of metal and bits of industrial refuse, and in some cases, partially absorbing the objects that tried to block their upward paths. Without knowing the growth rate of plants there or the weather patterns or a number of other key factors, it was hard to say how long things had been left unpopulated. Barry had already made plans to observe and measure plant growth over the course of the year and he had put together some theories based off of the chemical composition of the air around them. But, without knowing more about the entire planet’s atmosphere, the weather of each season, or any possible environmental phenomenons there may have been, there was only so much that they could guess about the planet’s timeline. 

 

Lucretia found herself wondering if the inhabitants of that world had been wiped out all at once, or if there were bands of survivors for a while, struggling to live in a world where their lack of survival skills and their complete ignorance of, and nonexistent exposure to nature had eventually done them in. Maybe, just like the scraps of machinery embedded in growing trees, they too had been absorbed for obstructing the path of the jubilant and unbridled growth of a new world. She continued to sketch her observations and write out her musings, but throughout their walks, they found nothing in the way of signs of life from after things collapsed; there were no improvised shelters or materials repurposed into anything or signs or warnings or alterations of any rubble of any kind. In addition to that, there were no signs of some great war or weather disaster or asteroid or… anything. Nothing was destroyed; it was all simply abandoned and falling to pieces. The world looked like it was stuck in the exact moment before it all just -- stopped moving. The moment where chains stopped being pulled, cranks stopped being turned, levers stopped being pressed. It was like everyone simply ceased their work, stood up, walked out and disappeared, leaving their cities and industries that had claimed the entire planet surface to tumble and rot. 

 

“Hey Luc, check this out!” Magnus waved Lucretia over from the machine that she was studying and led her around the perimeter of a series of decaying skyscrapers that seemed to oppressively separate them from the rest of the world. A short walk around and then behind the buildings, they found neat rows of houses, arranged in a perfect grid, all dark gray with flat roofs, all looking exactly the same, extending for as far as they could see from where they stood. 

 

Magnus gesticulated widely, presenting his discovery to Lucretia. 

“Kinda depressing, kinda neat, right?” 

 

“Yeah, I’d say that about sums it up.” Lucretia looked out at the sea of short, sad dwellings all lined up like a motionless army of stone. Aside from the perfect rows and aside from the sameness of each home, there was something else bothering her about the houses, about every building they had seen that was intact enough to get an idea of what it once looked like. 

 

“I just realized what it is that’s so ‘off’ about everything.” Lucretia spoke in a voice that sounded lost as she continued to look out towards the homes. “There are hardly any windows. Some of these buildings don’t have any windows at all. Actually, most of them don’t.” 

 

Magnus looked all around at the remnants of still partially standing buildings, the homes in front of them, the skyscrapers behind, the ones that looked like warehouses to either side of them in the distance. 

“That is pretty weird. Guess they weren’t interested in seeing outside.” 

 

Lucretia absentmindedly nodded. “Can’t say that I would be, either.” Her heart sank. They had come across some beautiful worlds; even some of the ones where terrible things had happened to them were still breathtaking in appearance. But, the world that she stood in at that moment was just… so incredibly sad. She knew that each plane could potentially house beings that were wildly different from themselves, that appreciated and wanted different things than they would ever desire, but -- she felt certain that there was no way that the people who were once there could have been happy.

 

***

 

Lup grit her teeth and her ears twitched as Barry accidentally hit a spot a little bit too hard with the scraper and the ear-piercing sound of metal on metal rang out. Barry shuddered and turned to Lup, looking apologetic. 

 

“Sorry, sorry.”

 

Lup laughed under her breath. “It’s okay, I’ll live.” 

 

Barry waited a moment, looking sorrier than he should have as he made sure that Lup was okay before turning back to his task. He worked the scraper even slower, trying to get a sizable enough sample of rust off of the fallen piece of roofing for them to work with, while taking care not to scratch the metal underneath again. They had noticed that the rust there behaved almost like a carnivorous fungus rather than an oxidation reaction. It seemed to grow on metal surfaces and then consume its host, creating burnt orange-rimmed holes. 

 

Lup tapped her fingers on the side of the block of cement that she was perched on as she watched Barry. 

“So, are you thinking we could use it for anything?” 

 

“I’m not sure what scenario we would need metal to be eaten, but who knows… might as well figure out how to grow it, keep some on hand. Can always expose it to the light whenever we have it next. Keep up the habit of trying out exposing everything we can to it.” 

 

Lup nodded and continued to watch Barry as he focused intently on meticulously executing his work. The focus and care that he applied to everything that he did was just another one of many things she loved… that she had loved for years, for decades. She involuntarily let out a wistful sigh as she looked at him -- she counted herself lucky that the area around them was noisy with wind and Barry was fairly distracted. Otherwise, the tone of that sigh would have been pretty damning. 

Things were getting dangerously near a tipping point and she was painfully aware of that fact. 

 

_ One of these days, I’m going to end up leaning in and kissing him while he’s working like this. Just… look at him. Gods.  _

 

But, she knew that was a terrible idea; if he didn’t feel that way about her, if he maybe didn’t even want to give her a  _ chance  _ in that way, it would be an awful thing to do to him, an awful position to put him in. And it could ruin so much. On top of that, her ego, her pride, her  _ heart  _ would be so injured. So, she just continued to look at him, to think about him. 

 

“I know I said it already but… I’m really glad you were with me last year.” 

 

Barry looked up from his work, his face solemn. 

“Yeah. That would have been awful alone.” 

 

Lup leaned a little closer towards Barry, setting her elbows on the hunk of metal in front of her, her hands under her chin. 

“Yeah, but I mean… I’m also just really glad it was you.” 

 

Barry felt his face turn red. 

 

“Oh?” He didn’t know what else to say, but he realized that with that response, he was basically coaxing an explanation from her.

 

Lup smiled from the corner of her mouth, and almost bit her lip but stopped herself, knowing how that might look. 

 

“Because, you know, just -- I’m always really curious about things and you’re really curious, too. More curious than careful, even. As frustrating as it was being stuck there, I feel like it was still interesting and -- well, I’m glad that you wanted to talk to the god and wanted to learn things, despite how dark and awful and long it was. You’re-” Lup hesitated as she went to lightly squeeze Barry’s shoulder, she hoped in what seemed like a friendly and reassuring way, “-you’re really great to work with.” 

 

Barry struggled to keep his heartbeat in check, to actively make sure that the face he was making was normal, that his voice wasn’t going to quiver. He swallowed before speaking.

 

“I’m glad I was with you too, Lup.” 

 

...

 

Lup set one of the mugs of coffee in front of Barry and he was shaken out of his laser focus on the work in front of him. He looked up at her gratefully. She leaned against the desk, her own mug of coffee in hand, steam pouring upwards across her smiling face. 

 

Without thinking, Barry lifted his coffee to his lips before realizing it was probably too hot still. He lingered with the mug in his hand while he looked at Lup; his glasses got fogged up and she laughed at him. He turned red while Lup set down her coffee before gently taking the glasses off of his face and wiping them off on her shirt. She thought about just handing them back, but she was feeling particularly tender that morning and wanted to take care of him. The only chance she had found to do that was in bringing him coffee; but then she was presented with another small chance. She lowered the glasses back onto his face, over his ears and the bridge of his nose, and then softly adjusted them to the exact spot where they normally sat. Barry was suddenly reminded of their year at the beach where Lup stood so close to him by the fire and had made that same kind and attentive gesture. He remembered how touched he had been -- how much more he had fallen in love with her at that moment, if that was even possible. He did his best to swallow his foolish sentimentalism and come back to the current moment so that he wouldn’t unknowingly make things uncomfortable. As her hands retreated from placing his glasses, he tried to smile at her like a grateful friend, and he hoped not like someone who had been desperately in love with her for decades. 

He looked at her through the glasses she had just so carefully set back in place and he noticed something. 

“Oh. Wow, how are these even cleaner now?”

 

Lup grinned. “Got that really soft fabric on this shirt, feel,” and without thinking in a gesture she might have done with Taako or anyone else she was comfortable with, she grabbed his hand and pressed it against the fabric that hung along her side. She realized the difference in having just  _ someone  _ feel the fabric of a shirt that she liked, and grabbing  _ Barry’s  _ hand in particular and pressing it against herself -- but it was already happening before she thought of that difference. Realizing it tripped her up and she paused awkwardly with her hand on top of his hand pressed against her. They were both still, and she had Barry’s hand laid against her for much longer than it took just to feel the material and they were both hugely aware of that fact. They sprang apart and laughed off the awkwardness, but failed to communicate or even think about what that awkwardness might have meant. They drank their coffee and got to work, but not without the incident repeatedly popping up in both of their thoughts.

 

***

 

Barry and Lup were spending a full day of work by exploring their surroundings, as they had frequently been so far that year. Lup had been feeling antsy nearly every day, waiting until it felt like enough time had gone by to ask Barry if he wanted to go out in the field again, sometimes running through ideas for excuses having to do with wanting to look for particular things or revisit something that they maybe didn’t spend enough time on before. Each and every time he was just as enthusiastic about working with her.

 

Out wandering in the world, they passed by a house that was mostly intact, protected on all sides by taller buildings that looked to have taken the brunt of weather-related wear and tear,  effectively shielding the small home. Lup pointed it out to Barry.

 

“Ooh, that house doesn’t look too bad, might actually find preserved stuff in it -- wanna check it out?”

 

Barry smiled, as he had been nearly constantly during their hike. “Of course, let’s do it!” 

 

Lup went in first, flinging open the door and scanning the insides. “Oh nice, Bear check it out.” 

 

Barry cautiously walked in behind Lup and looked around the living room of the house. It was by far the most intact place they had found -- it was still a mess, but it wasn’t completely blanketed in moss, and there was actually some ability to tell a little bit about what life might have been like for the people of that planet before their demise. They had, until then, figured the inhabitants to have been about human-height, but there in the first building they had found with remnants from whoever once populated the planet, they saw that while the inside of the house had a ceiling on par with their height, the skeletal remains of furniture were all very low to the ground. 

 

They explored every corner of the home, taking notes and discussing everything that they found, both of them surprising each other with interesting and creative observations that the other made. They were nearly ready to leave and continue their hike when they heard a soft series of tapping noises coming from outside. It was raining. And then, it was raining hard. 

“Huh. Guess we’re stuck here for a minute.” Lup sat on the ground by a short table and pulled her knees close to her chest before setting her chin on top of them. 

 

Barry sat down on the ground on the other side of the table as Lup. “Hope it’s not too long.”

 

“Oh why, don’t wanna be trapped with me?” Lup smiled impishly, and even though he knew that she was messing with him, Barry was flustered. 

 

“N-no, I mean, you know I didn’t mean it like that, I-“

 

“Barryyy.” She said his name like a warning, and he knew at once what that meant. 

He relaxed with a small laugh at himself. 

“Yeah, I know.” 

 

They sat quietly for a moment, listening to the steady rhythm of the rain outside. Lup’s eyes started to close as she focused on the sound. Barry shifted where he sat, trying as he so often did to not space out and look at Lup for too long. He looked around for something to focus on, but kept drifting back to her, all curled up tight against her knees, her eyes closed, her face serene. He felt lucky that he hadn’t lost her at all for years -- he of course felt terrible for Taako and everyone else for the year before, but he couldn’t help but be happy that he was with her. With his love for her only ever growing in intensity year after year, he didn’t know how he would handle being separated from her. And knowing that brought up another fear that was consistently looming in the background of his thoughts. They were  _ always  _ working, thinking, planning, collaborating -- one day, they were going to be strong enough, smart enough that they would  _ have  _ to be able to beat the Hunger. And then…

 

“Hey, Lup?”

 

“Yeah, Bear?” 

 

“When uh- when we do beat the Hunger one day, because… we have to, right? When we do, what do you think will happen with, uh -- with all of us?”

 

Lup blinked and settled a finger against her lips, thinking. 

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine not seeing everyone all the time. But, that’s entirely up to each of us, y’know? Depends on what everyone else wants, where they want to be, what they would want to do with their lives if we ever got the chance to be normal again.”

 

Barry nodded. 

“What would -- what would you want to do?” 

 

Lup looked up towards the ceiling and leaned back, propping herself up after unwrapping her hands from around her legs and putting them on the ground behind her. “Well, I for one kind of like being a powerful badass, constantly going on adventures and exploring and learning.” 

 

Barry smiled thoughtfully. “Hah, yeah… that’s what’s great about you.” 

 

Lup smiled and tried not to dwell on the compliment her close friend just gave her, as close friends sometimes do and it’s perfectly normal and fine, and…  _ just keep talking, just be normal.  _

 

“While I love all that, I do like the chance to be slow and quiet sometimes, too. Spend a day reading, or spending time like this. Talking and listening to the rain.” 

 

“Yeah.” Barry smiled dreamily. “This is -- this is really nice. I wouldn’t mind being able to spend at least a little more time like this.” 

 

After another moment of silence, Lup spoke. 

 

“What about you?”

 

“Me? Oh, uh- I don’t know.” Barry floundered, trying to think of something, anything, because he definitely couldn’t say what he had just been thinking -- couldn’t say that he would love to spend a life where he got to go everywhere with Lup, learning with her, reading next to her, sitting and listening to the rain with her for -- forever. He couldn’t say that he would follow her to even the darkest corners of any world, because being next to her made him unafraid; unafraid of the dark and so much more. He couldn’t say that the thing that scared him more than anything was the thought of regaining mortality, because that would mean that he would have a limited amount of time with her. If that happened, he would soon be unable to follow her and he’d be left behind, sleepy and weak in her powerful wake. He’d spend his days dreaming of her while she was out conquering the world, and he’d die with her name on his tongue. 

 

“C’mon Barry, you’ve got to have something in mind. Would you teach again? Or have you got too much adventuring in your blood, now? Would you be relieved, would you be bored…” Lup looked at Barry expectantly.

 

“I think... “ Barry swallowed his words. He wanted to say something, he  _ really  _ wanted to say something. He wanted to be honest. He didn’t want her to wonder what would happen if they ever did get to stop. He wanted her to know that he didn’t want to lose her,  _ couldn’t  _ lose her. If he didn’t let her know that, how might things end up? 

“I think I’d want to, uh- well, if we were in a new world and got to stay there, I’d probably want to do what we’ve been doing. We could uh -- actually get to learn a lot more about a world for once, instead of having to leave just when we’re on a roll. Getting to finally see all of a world, or at least as much as time would allow for... that would be nice.” 

 

Lup smiled slowly, cautiously. “And where would I be in all this?”

 

Barry felt his heart stop. “I mean, I would, um, I would -- hah, I uh, we’re partners, right? I mean, we wouldn’t really be co-workers anymore I guess, so you wouldn’t be  _ stuck  _ with me-”

 

“When have I ever said I was stuck with you, Bear?” Lup leaned over the table, propping herself up with her elbows, her head tilted, looking playful, feeling needy. 

 

“Well, I mean… technically, you kinda are.” Barry laughed. 

 

Lup crinkled her nose at Barry. “Just as much as you’re stuck with me.”

 

Barry bit the inside of his lip before he could accidentally say any of the things that he desperately wanted to. “I would hope that you would want to be part of my plans. I’d be… I’d be really lonely doing this kind of stuff without you.” 

 

_ He’d be lonely without me. _

She felt elevated, giddy -- his dream, his distant want for if they ever got out of their situation, was to keep doing the same thing with her. And that was honestly what she wanted, too; to continue learning and exploring and growing stronger, and to do those things near him and with him. Barry didn’t give himself nearly enough credit; his ambition was endless, his curiosity bottomless, and he was -- he was everything she could ever want in a companion. She could never possibly be bored with him… she even found herself cherishing their moments of downtime, of doing next to nothing with him, of doing any of the things they did that  _ should  _ have been boring. Spending slow, quiet time with him enjoying food or admiring the beauty of the sky or the scenes of nature of a world they were in; it was all precious to her. 

 

She didn’t know what to say to his answer. She could only notice that the table between them was very small and the space between them was narrow and she wouldn’t even need to lean over that far and she would be close enough to-

 

Just then, the sound of an explosive crack of thunder rang out, startling them out of their heartfelt conversation that had just had them feeling both soothed and nervous at the same time.

 

Lup’s heart had already been beating rapidly from her thoughts and her impossible impulses that she  _ definitely should not act on _ and the sudden, thunderous noise hadn’t helped. She took a moment to breathe, and then laughed as she looked over at Barry’s shocked face. 

“Pretty lucky that we found a place with a roof, huh?” 

 

Barry shook his head a bit and sharply inhaled, regaining composure before laughing.

“Pretty fucking lucky.” 

 

...

 

Barry and Lup talked as they waited for the rain to stop. They had returned to the topic of their notes and observations, comparing new findings to the information they had already gathered in their previous trips, talking over how things might fit together so that they could paint a picture of the world’s past. It wasn’t very long before the rain let up just as abruptly as it had started. They stepped outside and saw that, while the sun was shining even brighter than when they had set out, there were dark and ominous storm clouds in the distance. Lup had her thumbs hooked through the straps of her backpack as she stepped further away from the door of the house and scanned the horizon, feeling confident, happy.

 

“Better get back to the ship while we’ve got an opening!” 

 

***

 

Magnus came in the front door of the Starblaster with an arm around Barry, propping him up. He was barely able to walk. 

 

Davenport got up from his seat at the table where he had been looking over the maps that Barry and Lup put together. 

“What happened?”

 

Magnus was panting; he had obviously hurried back to the ship as fast as he could while supporting Barry, who looked like he was mostly dead weight at that point. 

As Magnus caught his breath, he started to explain. “We were just walking, just scoping stuff out, and there was this… I moved a piece of metal out of our way because we wanted to check out stuff on the other side of this mound of rubble and there was some sort of -- it was like… dry mist?” 

From the couch, Taako leaned forward, looking incredulous.

“‘Dry mist’? Dust? Are you trying to find the word DUST?”

Magnus rolled his eyes. “I forgot the word for a second! So what!”

“Oh my gods, you guys, who cares.” Lup was already at Barry’s side, looking him over. “And of  _ course  _ Merle just left. Barry, are you able to talk?”

Lup set a hand on either side of Barry’s face and lifted his head a bit so that she could look at him, see his eyes, check on how alert he was. He looked back at her and blinked a few times, then smiled weakly. 

“Kinda.” His voice came out in a hoarse croak and he winced and let his head drop again. 

“Oh shit, oh good -- okay, okay he’s at least a little lucid.”

Magnus looked at Barry sadly. “Yeah, he just got a big faceful of the stuff and started coughing. Didn’t think it was anything at first, but then he just got really bad, really fast. 

Lup closed her eyes tightly for a second; the thought of Barry being hurt, the thought of potentially  _ losing  _ Barry for the year, was…

“Magnus, let’s get him into bed, yeah?”

Magnus nodded and readjusted his arm around Barry. “On it!” 

***

 

Lup felt nervous as she held her pencil in her hand and hovered over the piece of paper. She wondered if it was too much… or if it was maybe even more strange that she didn’t do more things for him. She had made little doodles for others on the ship; she was just always so careful when it came to Barry. Taako had already made her feel self conscious for spending so much time with him, and she wondered if any of the others had noticed too. 

 

She drew a picture of the two of them, a cute and cartoonish drawing of them sitting by a campfire. Then, she folded the piece of paper into a card and wrote inside.

 

Later, she knelt by his bed to check on him and handed him her card. When he took it in his hands, she swore that she saw something flash over his face that she had never seen before, not from him, not from anyone. It was some sort of flood of emotions that she couldn’t pinpoint, but she felt a twinge of pain in her heart at the thought that maybe what she just did was a gesture that he hadn’t experienced before.

 

She laughed softly as he stared at it like he didn’t know what to do next. “It’s silly, I know.” 

 

“No, it’s…” Barry coughed a bit and then paused, hand to his mouth as he recovered his breathing. “It’s -- no one’s ever made me a card before. This is so… thank you, Lup.” He opened up the card to read the inside. 

 

_ Get better soon, nerd. We’ve got adventuring to do. _

 

Barry laughed as much as he could without further exacerbating the respiratory hell he had become inflicted with. He did his best to keep his emotions in check; it was even more difficult than usual, feeling as vulnerable and worn down as he did. 

 

“I’m sorry, Lup. I’m -- really upset that this happened. There was a lot I was looking forward to figuring out in this world. And I was wanting -- I really wanted to explore more with you. Go on one of our longer trips and - and just... yeah, I-I don’t know, I just wanted-” Barry stopped his rambling. He felt so tender and warm, so weak, so not in control. Lup was there, Lup had been with him so much, bringing him tea and food that she had made herself, just for him, taking care of him... making him a card. For probably the millionth time, he felt like saying something; but what a terrible time to do it. What if she was uncomfortable but still felt obligated to look over him? She was family, a best friend, and she was just so generous in her expressions and acts of love and care. It wasn’t fair for him to want to take that out of context, to wish that it all meant something else. 

 

Lup brushed a hand across the top of his head; a gentle movement, barely touching him, just a show of reassurance. 

 

“I really wanted to do more exploring with you, too.” She sighed with disappointment. It stung; Barry knew that he had no control over what happened, but he still couldn’t help but feel that he was the source of her disappointment, that he had let her down by getting sick. 

 

Lup noticed the melancholy look that settled on Barry’s face. He didn’t deserve to feel bad. He didn’t deserve to be sick. He didn’t deserve to be missing out. 

 

It wasn’t much… but she thought of something to cheer him up. 

 

“Hey! I’ve got an idea. Don’t you move.” Lup winked at Barry as she jumped to her feet, looking excited.

 

Barry felt his mood instantly turn around upon seeing her smile. “I wouldn’t even if I could.” 

 

…

 

A short while later, Lup returned, carrying a plate of sandwiches and dragging her camping pack behind her. She swung it over and dropped it next to his, set the plate down, and unbuckled their sleeping bags from the sides of the packs. She unzipped his entirely and pulled it over him like a blanket before rolling her own out on the floor next to his bed. She flicked her fingers and created a small floating ball of warm, weakly glowing light near the ground in between them. 

She grinned seeing the surprised and confused look on Barry’s face. She sat the plate of food on the ground next to her sleeping bag, making sure it was within reach from the bed, then ran over to the other side of the room. 

She paused dramatically as she stood next to the light switch, smiling wide and inhaling, taking in the moment. She flipped off the switch, the room went dark, and the scene was perfect. 

The small ball of light gave off a gentle orange glow in between their sleeping bags. Just enough to light the space between them, but not enough to drown out the stars scattered on the ceiling above them -- just like a campfire. She returned to his bedside and sat on her sleeping bag, looking over at the slowly spreading smile on Barry’s face from the other side of the small orb of light. 

 

How was he supposed to not cry? He grit his teeth and tightened his lips to keep the lump in his throat from exploding into tears and into words that he knew he shouldn’t say, and he did his best to surreptitiously hide it by covering his mouth with his hand as if he were about to have another coughing fit.

 

How was he supposed to not say anything?… Lup sat across from him looking as radiant and full of sincerity and love and joy and vivacity as ever, and with the warm light of her magic dancing across her features. 

 

How was he supposed to _survive?_ He lay there, under a miniature sky of stars that the love of his life had given him, next to an imitation campfire that the love of his life had conjured for him. He was existing in the midst of a scene meant to copy the camping trips that he had the extraordinary luck of getting to go on with the love of his life. And all while he was being taken care of, sick and weak as he was, _by the absolute love of his life._

 

How was he supposed to not cry. How was he supposed to not say anything.  _ How was he supposed to survive his love for Lup? _

  
  
  



	43. A Dull Weight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Forty Three

 

_ Sometimes people go under. Under the surface. And they don’t come back.  _

_ Battered in restlessly rocking waves  _

_ Or they find the seafloor, they find a sea cave  _

_ They hide and they don’t want to be found.  _

_ No sounds, no sounds or you’ll drown. _

_ Others want to be found.  _

_ Others would do anything to be found.  _

_ Strapped to something so solid and concrete, try to appeal to an unknowable emotion that was previously uncatered to  _

_ Undefined something that could create air and light that lift to the surface s-s-some feeling that hasn’t been considered an emotion able to be understood by  _ THE OTHERS

 

Lucretia and Davenport looked over the text again and again, trying to find any sort of meaning in it. Wondering if it was important. Wondering if it could be imperative to their survival or to finding something they could use, to finding the light. Everything about that world was cryptic and coded, hidden, altered, turned into a puzzle or maze. Some areas were overwhelmed with garish colors and an irresponsible amount of small flashing lights, or semi-solid mirrors that were almost melting off of the walls, moving and creating distorted, grotesque reflections of whoever walked by. Other sectors were filled only with giant mazes winding through immaculately manicured hedges. Some of them just zig-zagged along the borders and then back to the entrance, others had actual destinations, either to the entrance of another maze or to the dead center where there would be a small fountain or statue, indicating the end of the maze. There seemed to be no point to them, but it didn’t feel right going through them. Not dangerous necessarily, not worrisome, just not  _ right. _

There were tall, blindingly white, blue-trimmed homes topped with short cylindrical structures lined with dark windows. Upon exploring those buildings, they found walls that moved; some on their own, others being prompted by moving something in the room or pressing a panel on the wall. When they opened, they would lead to long hallways that were either dead ends or just to another room of the home that could have easily been reached in a normal fashion. Stairways led to dead ends, windows were painted black from the inside, and the homes were filled with a variety of furniture of wildly differing styles and colors. But, there were no appliances or lights, no sinks or closets or kitchens. It was only a series of elaborately decorated living rooms all connected to each other through strange networks of hallways and hidden entrances. 

 

In addition to the homes spotting the flat, sprawling land of perfectly even, short dark green grass, there were tall boulders and carved white columns that stood on their own, supporting nothing. There were all manner of structures that would have made good landmarks, had they been able to stay still. Things were moving and operating and mowed and pruned, and always shifting, shuffling over the landscape -- but never while they were looking. 

Where Lucretia and Davenport stood at that moment was at a desk in a museum, one where everything was out in the open, almost inviting them to be touched and handled and inspected. It all had the feeling of fitting together somehow, of maybe being some sort of riddle. Like the poem they were reading, written on an elaborately designed scroll, written in ink that shimmered in the light; they found it unrolled and spread across a desk, waiting to be read. Poems would be near paintings with similar imagery that would then have an out-of-place object somewhere hidden in them, like a miniature golden goblet oddly placed on an apple in a basket of fruit, and when they would take a few steps, there would be a goblet partially hidden under a dusty cloth on a pedestal. Then they would find that it was only one of a set of four that were not displayed  together, but spread throughout the museum in places and positions that seemed so intentional that it had to mean something. 

 

Lucretia quietly pointed to a ball of string on the ground without saying anything. During their time there, they both had the overwhelming feeling that they should be as quiet as possible while they were in the building. Davenport saw where she was pointing to, and they looked over the ball of string, a long piece of it being unwoven from the ball, lying across the floor and leading into a darkened doorway. They didn’t need to communicate at all, didn’t need to even look at each other to know that they were not going to go in there. Not only that, but they felt that they should turn around and go in the exact opposite direction of it. They entered a long hallway and part way down it, there was an alcove in the wall. The inside of it was brightly lit from above, and within was a statue of a humanoid figure wrapped up in some material that was caught in the wind and flowing behind it. The detail in the carving was so perfect, it actually made the stone look like it would be soft to the touch. With the rounded shape of the inside of the alcove and the bright light from above, the walls around it caught its shadow on either side, creating two shadows in a slanted, distorted version of the statue’s elegant shape. 

 

While Lucretia stopped to quickly sketch the statue, Davenport felt compelled to reach out and lightly touch it. 

From the end of the hallway, they heard the groaning and scraping sound of what sounded like another wall moving; they had started to become used to the noise enough for them to recognize it as it echoed down the hall. 

 

***

 

Lup swirled a vial of liquid and looked at it closely. They had retrieved it from a fountain that was at the center of one of the mazes they explored. They were already skeptical about trying any more; it was pretty disorienting getting their way out of that first one, and they felt certain that things had changed in the maze’s setup since they entered it. 

But they got some interesting samples -- one of them being the liquid that Lup was looking at. It wasn’t too easy to see, but there was definitely some sort of separation in the fluid, something in it that was heavier than the rest. They didn’t know if it was water and something else, or if they were two completely foreign liquids. They got straight to setting up equipment for the distillation process so that they could separate the liquids and study them individually. Barry handed Lup equipment from a shelf while she sat at the counter putting everything together. Lup set a flask on top of a suspended square of metal grating so that they could start the process of slowly boiling the liquid, hoping that the two or more different fluids would have different boiling points and separate from each other. The process was long, needing to slowly heat the liquid and hoping that by a certain temperature, one would start condensing at the top of, and then traveling through, an angled cylindrical glass tube to the other flask, drop by drop. Barry handed her the last part; the burner that he had just finished connecting via rubber tubing to its fuel source. Lup leaned out of her chair a bit to hover over and adjust the burner under the flask, forgetting that she had taken her braids out earlier and had her hair completely loose. With both of her hands full, her hair cascading around her, and about to start an open flame, she muttered, “Could you get that for me?” And, as he had done for her a couple of times before - because it was just part of him helping her with work of course - he stepped behind her and reached over to gently pull her hair back from each side, out of the way from her work 

 

“Ugh, FINALLY.” 

With her hair still scooped up in his hands, Barry and Lup both turned to see Taako standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. Feeling surprised and confused by him showing up behind them and yelling, they just looked at him for a moment. Lup shook her head and was about to say something, but Taako cut her off.

 

“Anyways, just came here to say dinner’s ready, dorks. But y’know, take your time or whatever.” He pushed himself off of the door frame and disappeared down the hall. 

 

Barry looked down at Lup questioningly and Lup shrugged, not being able to explain that she  _ might  _ actually have known what Taako’s comment was about. 

“Yeah I don’t know.” 

 

“Finally…?” Barry turned to look at the clock. “Isn’t this when we usually have dinner?”

 

...

 

At the dinner table, Taako periodically looked at Lup and Barry from the corner of his eye. They were acting  _ exactly  _ the same. And not like ‘putting on an act to cover it up’ sort of the same -- he would be able to tell if his sister was doing that, and he was pretty sure that Barry was incapable of deception. He had, for the most part, done his best to put their whole thing out of his mind, or sometimes even forgot about it for a little while (it had been actual  _ decades,  _ after all) because he knew better than to mess with Lup too much, considering their circumstances. Had they been in a normal situation, he would have been unable to control himself and would have been merciless after a couple  _ months  _ at the absolute most.

 

While everyone was talking in the common room after dinner, Taako checked on Lup and Barry more than once. Barry was talking to Magnus, who was incredibly excited about something, and Lup was reminding Davenport that work talk was not allowed during post-dinner hangouts and lightly arguing over what did or didn’t count as ‘work talk’. The two of them weren’t even sitting together. He rolled his eyes and went back to explaining to Lucretia what the word ‘sick’ meant as a slang term after she took him saying that some of her illustrations were “pretty sick” as criticism. 

  
  


Once everyone had wound down and started going off to bed, Lup and Taako retreated to their room. The moment the door was shut, Taako had things to say.

 

“LuLu. You are  _ actually  _ KILLING me. Your BROTHER.”

 

Lup furrowed her brow and wrinkled up her nose, trying to look annoyed, but her ears started drooping in a way that Taako knew meant she was nervous about being confronted. He raised an eyebrow at her, his arms crossed and foot impatiently tapping the ground. He knew she was trying to intimidate him out of questioning her. She relaxed her face and sharply exhaled as she gave in. 

 

“It’s just… we have fun working together, and he’s helpful and just a good guy. That’s all… It’s not going to be anything else.”

 

Taako covered his face with his hands and Lup heard a muffled yell before he dragged his hands down his face, exasperated. 

 

“LuLu. My dear, sweet sister who should definitely not be this fucking dense considering she is otherwise an actual genius. Today, I watched him holding your hair like it was a priceless vase he was trying not to break, I’ve walked in on him just absolutely panicking in the kitchen over getting your coffee  _ exactly  _ as you like it -- oh, and that’s only when it’s not  _ you  _ bringing it to  _ him, _ which by the way, whenever that happens in the living room, after you’ve walked off he looks at the mug you handed him like it’s made out of fucking gold. I can’t imagine what his face looks like when he’s alone.” 

 

Lup huffed and looked annoyed again. “I mean, we  _ all  _ take care of each other, right? I’d ask someone else to help with my hair if I needed… you even do Merle’s hair sometimes! Davenport spent over an hour getting that weird sticky vine bit out of Lucretia’s hair last year so that she wouldn’t have to cut any off. Merle did that horrible job of shaving Magnus’s head when we were on that super hot planet. How is that any different?”

 

“LuLu - for real? You  _ know  _ how it’s different; and don’t think that I can’t see it.”

 

Lup sneered and walked over to the bed, jumping on it to sit cross-legged and then grabbing a pillow to hug against herself. She pouted angrily at first before softening into a worried looking sort of sadness. 

“I just… I don’t know.” 

 

Taako sighed, knowing it was time to lay off. He got onto the bed and sat across from her. 

“Want to talk about something else?”

 

Lup nodded, her face half-buried in the pillow, her words muffled.

“I wanna talk about how stupid Merle’s cut-off shorts look.”  

 

Taako was happy to talk to her about something lighter, but he was also immediately vexed at the thought of Merle’s latest fashion statement.

“The legs aren’t even the same length! It’s like he didn’t even try!”

 

Lup looked over the edge of the pillow. “Let’s steal them and burn them.”

 

“Yeah, we’d be doing him a favor.” Taako flopped backwards to lie down on the bed. He was still baffled, but also feeling relieved that she was talking and not staying annoyed at him for trying to get a confession out of her. It would have to happen eventually, right? Until then, he’d just try to forget about it again. He turned over on his side to look at Lup with an impish smile.

“We’re gonna steal and burn Merle’s shorts.” 

 

***

 

Merle, Davenport and Lucretia stepped through a stone gazebo to get to the entrance of another one of the mazes. Merle wanted to see the plants there to see what he could tell about the impeccably pruned, yet seemingly abandoned shrub walls that made up the twists and turns of the maze. Looking over the leaves, there were no cuts, no leaves snipped in half when the greenery was carved away at in order to make perfectly flat walls. Everything was just growing that way on its own. 

 

The maze led back to the museum that Davenport and Lucretia had been trying to solve. It had shifted and they couldn’t find it the day after they left it, but there it was again, with the hedges on each side of them running all the way up to the door, funneling them into the building. They were skeptical about whether it would even be the same one, or if it just had a similar facade, but stepping inside, they found everything as they had left it before, including the objects they had moved and open walls they had triggered. And also, the ball of string leading to the dark open doorway. 

“Ooh, what’s that?” Merle was immediately drawn to the mysterious string and the way it was trying to lead them somewhere was intriguing to him. It was intriguing in general of course, but Davenport and Lucretia’s sense of something being wrong was too strong for them to risk following it. 

 

Lucretia set a hand on Merle’s shoulder before he could start running after it without a second thought. 

“So, we’ve kind of decided to  _ not  _ go in there.” 

 

Merle tapped a finger against his lips, his eyebrows flattened in concentration. 

“Hmm. Well, did you try pulling it?” 

Without waiting for an answer, Merle walked over and picked up the string and gave it a rough tug. A light turned on in the dark room. Davenport shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, all at once feeling not happy about Merle just doing things without them all agreeing first, and also in disbelief that neither of them had even thought about doing that. 

 

***

 

She had made him a card, gave him those little stars that made him think of her every night, took care of him when he was sick, and did the absolute kindest thing anyone had done for him when she put together that makeshift camp when he was disappointed about being bedridden. And what had he done for her? He wanted to do so many things, but everything that he thought of was too much, too personal, too declarative. Every idea he had would only serve to give himself away. 

 

He could easily write an entire book about her otherworldly, cosmic beauty, her fascinating mind, her unrivaled power, her endless kindness. He would end up with holes in the paper he wrote on from erasing again and again, because there just… there were no words anymore. 

His love for her over the years had become something so nebulous, so far beyond what the word ‘love’ could even communicate. Even far beyond any description possible with the kind of words used for a higher kind of love. Because it wasn’t simply higher than that -- it wasn’t  _ heightening  _ in intensity, it was just -- everywhere. It consumed him, surrounded him, circulated in him. It had become part of him, all of him, it changed him, it redeemed him.   

 

There were no words for it anymore. 

 

But he could still try. He could write stacks of poems about her smile, endless songs with melodies intended to represent the gift of her existence, write theories about the inner workings of her brilliant mind, or heartfelt letters recalling examples of and celebrating her endless and conditionless capacity for empathy.

He could ramble like a madman, go into rapturous, hours-long, glorifying explanations of Lup-ness, as if he were giving lectures on the most advanced subject that he had ever touched.

But those were all confessions. Those were all… too much. Far too much.

 

So, what  _ could  _ he do for her?

Maybe just more of the little things? As many as he could manage? He had tried cooking a few times before -- it didn’t really work out and Taako definitely didn’t like it. But maybe he could try harder, or ask Taako for help again and run the risk of being asked  _ why  _ he was so concerned about cooking. 

 

He had  _ some  _ time to maybe think of something -- he didn’t know why but he felt like something needed to be done right then, as soon as possible. She knew exactly what to do when he was sick; she thought of it in a split second. Why couldn’t he do that? He had a while longer than a split second though; they had set up a second distillation process after finding that there was more than one substance in their mystery liquid, and it was going to take a while. Taako had dragged Lup off to talk about something that seemed important, and Barry wasn’t even really sure if she was going to be coming back to the lab or not. It wasn’t like there was much more to do except check in on the distillation periodically and then break down the equipment once it was done. And that was just standard, boring lab stuff, and he didn’t want her to be bored. He tried to get the mundane parts taken care of as often as he could, or whenever she wouldn’t insist on doing it. He always wanted her to have as much time as possible doing the parts of their research that were a little bit fun, or at least interesting. 

 

Barry got an idea. 

 

He finally thought of something. He wasn't sure if it was actually anything, but… Lup had used the microscope plenty of times, of course, sometimes getting the opportunity to look at something new and different, which always really excited her. But, for the most part, they were looking at a lot of the same things in terms of soil particles, plant cells, water. She still found enjoyment in it, in any small discovery, even in just finding that things were safe, that they were familiar. But, there were a lot of things that they never had any need of getting a closer look at. And some of those things were just… really beautiful and strange. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before; they were always pretty focused on using the lab for work only or for experimental studies, but not so much for fun, because why would they do that when there was always so much to be done? But, they  _ could  _ get away with wasting a little bit of time playing around with the equipment. He ran to the kitchen to grab whatever spices he could, searched through the fridge, wandered around common spaces, dug through his own things, asked Lucretia whether she had any chalk, went back to the lab and ground some things up, burned some things to ash, cut other things down to the thinnest slivers he could manage, and prepared a series of sample trays. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be  _ that  _ interesting. 

 

Maybe he shouldn’t present it as something that was a big deal -- but gods it was obvious that he had put a fair amount of work into what he did. Especially with the equipment; they had only used it a couple of times as needed, because even preparing a sample to use with it was a whole production. Maybe he should just hide it all, maybe he should wait on it. He had been so focused on putting it all together that he hadn’t really thought much about how it would be received, how he should present it, whether he should do that at all, gods he was trying to  _ not  _ do something that was too much, but also not something pointless, what he was going to-

 

“Hey, Bear.” 

Lup was behind him, at the entrance to the lab. Either she hadn’t spent as much time with Taako as he had anticipated, or he had just completely lost track of time. He turned around, startled and with his eyes wide open, looking as if he had been interrupted in the middle of something that he shouldn’t have been doing. Lup just laughed at his reaction, her soft and friendly laugh. The one that said she wasn’t teasing or laughing  _ at  _ him, but the one that was about how she noticed him, and that she enjoyed that he was being so --  _ him. _

“Whatchya got there?” 

 

“Oh, uh- I uh just thought that we could do some stuff in the lab just for fun? I mean, working with you is always fun, of course just, uh-” Barry started to turn red and rubbed at the back of his neck… why was doing something small like that setting him back so much in terms of not being able to at least pretend to keep his shit together around her?

 

Lup looked interested. “Oh hell yeah, what were you thinking?”

 

“I don’t know, it kinda seems silly now, I can just-”

 

Lup walked over closer to Barry -- he was obviously nervous over trying something new,  _ and it was fucking cute.  _

 

“Well, it’s a good thing that I like silly stuff, then.” She set a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Show me.” 

 

Her words were like a request and a gentle command combined. She didn’t want him to be nervous, he knew that. Barry nodded and tried to shove down his anxious energy -- he had already completely fucked up even bringing it up, which should have been the first and the easiest part of the whole thing.  _ Can I just please stop being a disaster?  _

 

The lights were still set low; he hadn’t even noticed the transition from day into dusk. The bright sunlight fading from the room was being replaced with a warm, low light from the distant sunset, pouring through the single window on the far wall of the lab. Barry gulped and walked around the corner of the lab, to the other end of the counter where most of the storage was, with Lup following him. When he stopped, she elected to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder rather than standing next to him, making him even more nervous. Seeing the equipment that he was using, Lup raised an eyebrow in surprise.  

 

“Oh fuck, you’ve got the electron ‘scope set up; that must’ve been a pain in the ass. Did you stumble across something pretty serious?” She was just as excited as ever to see Barry find something new and important, and to start spinning off into elaborate ideas and theories. But -- he wasn’t really acting how he usually did when that was the case. 

 

With Lup standing so close behind him, he tried to keep his hands from shaking as he carefully put on gloves and opened the sample chamber under the tall, metal cylinder anchored to a rolling desk that was normally safely stowed in a vacuum-sealed storage space. Barry moved to the side and turned the screen next to the microscope towards himself so that Lup couldn’t see yet. He made some adjustments, being extremely careful to get it perfect. He stepped aside and didn’t say anything -- maybe he wouldn’t screw up if he was just quiet. He only lightly motioned towards the microscope to suggest that it was her turn to take a look. As she stepped next to him, tilting the screen a bit more to fully see, Barry felt the need to explain himself and couldn’t stop, because otherwise she wasn’t going to know what the point was and she was just going to be confused and he would be crushed and embarrassed and not be able to show her the rest and-

“It’s uh -- th-this first one is just some ethanol, uh just because we’ve never really had a reason to look at that, you know? And especially not under the electron microscope. So, it’s just… it’s not a huge thing, I didn’t mean to make a big deal of it, it’s just that there’s some stuff that looks neat this close and-”

 

Lup had been slowly leaning closer to the screen, taking in every detail; as Barry spoke, she stood up straight and turned to look at him.  _ Gods, she thinks I’m an idiot, this was the worst idea.  _

 

“Neat? Barry, this is  _ beautiful.  _ I… I’m-” she exhaled and dropped her shoulders, smiling a bit before leaning back over to eagerly pore over every detail of the three dimensional, metallic, rainbow colored fractals that were displayed on the screen. Once she stood straight and turned to look at him again, she was smiling brightly and Barry felt a smile creeping over his own face, unable to move his eyes away from her, not trying to for once. 

“You said there was more? Is that what this box is?” 

 

There was a short delay before Barry could get his mind to stop melting enough to respond. “Yeah, uh -- all of those samples there, they’re just different things that are normal stuff, but look really nea-” he stopped short and inhaled carefully, and his voice gained a tone of reverence as he continued to look at Lup, almost forgetting that he was talking about something else or even that he was talking out loud, “really,  _ really  _ beautiful.”

 

Hearing Barry being so soft and sweet about something scientifically fascinating, as usual, made her heart beat in a way that it definitely wasn’t supposed to. She looked into the box that was housing a stack of several sample trays and picked up the one on top. 

 

“Which one is this?”

 

“That one is-” Barry leaned in closer to double check, “-that’s uh, that one’s chalk. It’s… random, I know. But it is a really interesting one.” 

 

Lup was buzzing with anticipation as Barry began to set up the next tray.

“How did you know to look at these particular things?”

 

“I just kind of used to look at everything when I had access to lab equipment at the university. Whatever was laying around, whatever I could find or bring from home. It was partly practicing, but also just — I was fascinated with how different things look when they were up close, and the uh, similarities there are to things that are infinitely larger.” He laughed and looked down at the counter while he recalled the things he did in a life so far gone that it was surreal to even think about. And then he smiled and laughed under his breath as he thought about another moment from long before. 

“I guess I’ve always been a nerd. That was the kind of thing I did for fun. Probably while you were out ‘crushin’ it’.” 

 

Lup laughed and played along by lightly elbowing Barry in the side; another ancient artifact from their past. 

 

They smiled meaningfully at each other before returning to the equipment. And, with Barry leaning in close to make adjustments to the screen and Lup leaning in close to watch how he did it, she turned her eyes on him with a wistful smile, remembering the beginnings of their history together in the dimming light of dusk settling into evening with the low, warm lights in the lab around them. He was focused on turning a dial as lightly as he could, and staring at the fluctuating numbers next to it. Lup found that at some point without her noticing, her heart started to race and everything around her seemed to be fading and floating in slow motion as she watched him. She felt herself unable to stay as far away from him as she was, which was already so close… she wasn’t even actually moving, just melting in a way that made her unable to maintain the distance between them that she had to work at to keep. She was just — slowly letting go of the resistance.

  
  


That was when they heard glass breaking and smelled smoke. They were both at once alert, knowing that something was  _ very  _ wrong. They hurried to the other end of the lab where they had their distillation setup - the process that they hadn’t checked on in a while - and saw that the beaker under the burner had exploded and the liquid that was left from the beaker was dripping through the grate. It was reacting violently to the flame, spewing out a fog of noxious smoke that had them choking and their eyes watering. Lup closed her eyes and covered her mouth and marched forward, feeling around on the ceiling to find the lever for the vents. Barry used the sleeve of his robe to wave away smoke while he searched through wincing eyes for the valve to turn off the burner. Lup’s hand made contact with the lever and she jerked the large vents open and all of the smoke in the room seemed like it suddenly shifted as a large part, but not all, was taken in by the fans as soon as they were on. Barry got the valve closed and the billowing  smoke coming from the burner slowed, but the room was still filled with it, and would be until the fans could fully ventilate it. Lup got low to the ground, coughing and choking, and searched for Barry. They crashed into each other as they both tried to huddle under the smoke while making their way to the cupboard where the gas masks were stored. Lup felt a mask being shoved into her hands as Barry gave it to her before grabbing another for himself. But the masks could only help them breathe. They could both feel a sort of tingling burning sensation on the surface of their skin -- which was not great.

 

Once the smoke cleared out, they both looked at the aftermath with shock, barely able to wind down their state of panic. The lab was still hazy with thin remnants of smoke, but they pulled off their masks to look over the scene on the counter. They looked at each other, their faces full of regret and apology. They knew they fucked up. And they knew that could never happen again. 

 

***

 

“So, we finally found something different.” Davenport, after being reminded by Merle that having fresh eyes on things often yielded results, had just come back from another trip to the museum with Taako and Magnus. He went straight to finding Lup and Barry.

  “I’m not sure if we actually solved a puzzle or something; we just kept trying things and a panel in the wall opened up with a door behind it.”

 

Taako looked over his fingernails, seeming unaffected by their news. “Figured we should talk to everyone about it before hopping in. But I feel like I’ve done enough today, thank you. Someone else can go explore the haunted house.”

 

Davenport nodded at Lup and Barry, sitting in their lab chairs. “Since it’s a new area, you want to go in just a little ways, stay in sight of the exit, and see if there’s anything new to collect? Maybe if we can figure something out about it before fully exploring it, we can know what we’re getting into.”

 

They looked at each other, a bit nervous. Lup turned to Davenport, seeming cheery, but not enough for Taako not to notice that something was off.

“Sure thing, Cap’n!” 

 

***

 

Maybe she needed to start trying to find a way to cool things down, to get the heaviness of her impossible love off of her chest. It was distracting, it was hopeless, it was something that shouldn’t happen, whether or not it even  _ could. _ She needed to focus on herself as a person, on the crew at large - her family- and on their goals together as a team. She needed to focus on doing things correctly, carefully. Safely. Those were the things that were important. She needed to figure out how to offload all other...  _ distractions.  _

 

She had only ever counted on her brother for her entire life. But she had found a family that she had started to count on, that she trusted. And that was why she needed to be more attentive, undistracted -- for all of them. 

 

She stood next to Barry in front of the entrance to the room Davenport told them about. There was a sign over it, busy with flashing lights that spelled out “The Sea Caves.” 

 

“That’s not creepy at all.” Lup stretched and stood in place. Barry glanced over at her from the corner of his eye and then walked through the door. Lup was slow to follow behind, leaving a bit of distance between her and Barry. He was painfully aware of it; he understood, but was still hurting. 

 

Inside, they were surrounded on all sides by what looked like noticeably fake -- maybe even papier mache -- rock wall, creating the effect of walking down a tunnel into a cave. It was dark except for a wavy blue light that shone on the walls, moving like water, from a source that they couldn’t find. Lup, still a little ways behind Barry, felt around on the walls. 

 

“Nothing to collect here, except whatever the walls are made of. Not like there’s moss or anything else growing.”

 

“Yeah, I guess we just don’t go any further until we see if there’s something illuminating about whatever this material is.” Barry reached into the inside pocket of his robe to grab his small case of tools and turned his attention to the wall in front of him. As he was cutting into the wall, he found that it had the consistency of styrofoam, but… it was wet on the inside. It oozed from the cut, almost like it was bleeding. Lup traced a finger along the wall, feeling the texture and whether there were any variations or maybe openings in the fake stone. 

Barry heard a harsh grinding noise from down the hallway. He looked away from his work to see a wall spring out from the side of the hallway, separating him and Lup.

He dropped his tools and ran towards the divide, banging against it and yelling her name. 

His mind was racing, but one of the thoughts he tried to calm himself with was that the wall was something that she could easily burn through, so it was fine, she was fine, but why wasn’t she answering? He was yelling her name, asking if she could hear him. Then, one second of silence and he felt like something was squeezing his heart, two seconds of silence and he felt cold, three seconds and his hands were shaking, four and he could feel his eyes stinging, five and he yelled her name again, louder, more desperate. He stood with his forehead to the wall, his fists limply against the surface from where he stopped pounding against it, listening for her voice instead. He held his breath, not wanting to make a noise in case he could hear anything, but mostly just not being able to breathe. And the wall started to retract, scraping against his forehead a bit before he snapped away from it. It receded completely back into the side of the tunnel, and Lup wasn’t behind it. 

 

…

 

Barry ran as fast as he could back to the ship. He had tried to reach Lup on her stone, but she wasn’t answering. The part that really scared him was that it was lighting up as if she were responding, meaning that her stone was being operated. But only a low hum was coming through; a deeply resonating, constant hum that sounded somewhere far in the background. And it stayed that way, never turning off on her end, meaning that he couldn’t speak through his own. He looked everywhere on the walls, on the floor, for anything, any crack that might have been a place for a door or a hatch, pressing against every surface around where she had disappeared. He realized he was wasting time; he needed to get back and get others to help. 

 

Stumbling through the door of the ship, his legs weak, barely able to speak from being so out of breath, he told them what had happened. Taako was already on his feet and walking towards the door, but Davenport stopped him. 

“Hold on a minute -- we’ve just found out that this place is dangerous. We have less than a month left. She’s going to be back, and we don’t want to risk losing more people.” 

 

Taako only sneered at Davenport with contempt and continued on his way out the door.  Davenport sighed and shook his head, meanwhile Barry started to follow Taako, and Davenport panicked. 

 

“Please just don’t go. At least not yet -- if she  _ can  _ be found, he’ll find her. Barry...” 

 

There was an undertone in Davenport’s voice that Barry was sure he hadn’t heard before -- he was scared, vulnerable. He obviously saw himself losing control of the situation fast; maybe even not having any control at all. He didn’t want them all to go looking for each other, disappearing one by one, and ending up alone. 

 

“Can we just please stick it out, just a few weeks, and not risk it? At least wait a little bit, see if he comes back with her.” 

 

Barry’s heart sank, but he decided to listen; decided to trust Taako, even if he didn’t want to listen to Davenport. 

 

…

 

Barry didn’t last for long. Hours went by and he did nothing but sit at the edge of his bed, holding his stone of farspeech. He was disturbed by the ominous humming noise that never stopped, but he wasn’t about to miss the chance to possibly hear Lup or Taako. He left his door open so that he could hear if anyone came back. It was dark. And nothing had happened and no one was doing anything and his frustration grew with every minute that passed. Sitting there. Useless. He heard Davenport talking to Magnus before leaving the common room. He heard Magnus’s heavy steps retreating to his own room. He didn’t know where Lucretia was, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t just be sitting in the common room by herself. Merle was gone. Barry braced himself. He  _ had  _ waited, after all. But he couldn’t wait anymore. Once he got his things together, he stepped slowly out of his room and quietly shut the door behind him. That was when he heard the hum of the engine turning on and felt the ship lurch as Davenport flew them out and to a new location, planning to keep the ship hovering above ground for the rest of their time there . 

 

Barry ran, but the cockpit door was closed and locked. And it didn’t open until they were somewhere else, somewhere Davenport chose. 

And when it opened, Barry and Davenport confronted each other. 

 

…

 

“How many times have you all put yourself at risk to go after someone else? How many times have you made the decision, without any consideration of others, to do something stupid trying to save one person, only to have us lose two, or more? Because haphazardly running after someone while emotional and not thinking straight has  _ never  _ worked out for anyone. Why would you put our numbers at risk like that? Every person that we lose makes the rest of us just that much more unsafe; it’s not just about yourself or the person who’s gone. It’s selfish and I’m not putting up with it anymore. I’m taking control of the situation.”

 

Barry was shaking with frustration. “Taking control doesn’t mean forcing us to a different location, it doesn’t mean not even talking to us, not telling us what’s going on! That’s not what a leader does...” 

 

Davenport was injured and he winced, but even as he did, he shot back. “Are you even aware of how many times all of you have made the decision not to talk to  _ me _ _?  _ Do you know how many times I’ve woken up and someone is just gone and never comes back? And I don’t even know what happened, I can’t even do anything about it. Frankly, I don’t know what ‘a leader does’ anymore because my decisions, my instructions feel like they mean nothing to anyone sometimes, so -- who am I even supposed to be in this group?”

 

Barry was speechless, and a bit shocked from seeing Davenport like that,  _ sounding  _ like that. He obviously had been harboring some awful feelings... and they hadn’t noticed. He was feeling ineffectual, unnecessary -- just how Barry used to feel. Barry remembered the times that Davenport noticed him, noticed that  _ he  _ was harboring something, and took him aside and reassured him that he was needed, that he was part of them. His feelings were still mixed, only because letting Lup go for any amount of time felt impossible, felt heinous to even consider.

Barry just hung his head in silence. Davenport’s face wrinkled, suppressing a flood of emotions, trying not to show how devastated he was. They walked out to the deck to talk, because the energy that hung in the air in that space near the cockpit was something that they needed to get away from.

 

***

 

Each morning when he woke up, there was a slight delay before he remembered that she was gone, and when he did, he had to face it all over again. It was hard leaving his room, knowing that he wouldn’t see her at breakfast, wouldn’t see her in the lab, wouldn’t see her on the deck, wouldn’t be going anywhere with her. His day would be so empty. He didn’t even feel bad anymore that he missed her the most when she was gone, more than he ever missed anyone else. He didn’t care if it was fair, he knew what the score was. He loved them all, missed them all, but Lup had a piece of him that he couldn’t quite identify -- whatever it was, she had it and he felt the pain, the heaviness of it being gone, like a dull weight in his chest. 

And what about  _ her?  _ They didn’t know if her and Taako were dead. They could have been alive and going through something awful. He never let go of his stone of farspeech, just in case. 

 

He found himself feeling dazed and then quickly inhaled as he realized that he had been staring at nothing for several minutes. He got up to do something… but he forgot. He sat back down at the edge of his bed and stared at nothing for several minutes again. He couldn’t think of anything important to do, anything that could even take his mind off of her, off of whether or not she was okay. The activity that could distract him from Lup’s absence didn’t exist in any universe. The only thing that made time pass was being unconscious, but unfortunately he couldn’t sleep all day, every day. And even then — when he dreamed of her, things were just that much harder when he woke up. 

 

He stayed in bed for hours, awake, with the light panel next to him over the nightstand still on, only partly illuminating the room. He didn’t know how he was going to sleep, even with how exhausted he was. He missed her. He leaned over, propped up on an elbow, and turned off the light, plunging his room into darkness. He rolled over onto his back once more and looked up at the ceiling, at the sky full of stars that helped him feel close to Lup. Wherever she was.  


	44. Blood From a Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Forty Four

 

“Just… don’t tell anyone else. Please.” 

 

Barry nodded in agreement as he sat across from Davenport at a card table they had set up on the deck. Davenport was teaching him one of the card games that he and Merle had made up over the years -- the rules were inscrutable and seemed to change when convenient, but Barry did his best to keep up. It was obviously a game made for distraction and fun and not that concerned with strategy. Barry could definitely see more of Merle’s influence in the game than Davenport’s. In fact, it seemed like the opposite of the sort of thing that Davenport would come up with. Maybe that was why he liked it; it probably helped to reverse or slow some of his worrisome thinking.

After their argument and ensuing conversation in the year before, Barry found out a lot more about Davenport than he had ever assumed there was. He felt immeasurably guilty that he had seldom considered Davenport’s feelings or emotional state in their many situations throughout the years. Just because he seemed so stalwart and level-headed didn’t mean that he was cold and unfeeling and, as Barry found out, it didn’t mean that he didn’t cry himself to sleep sometimes, just like the rest of them…

He cared about Davenport as part of his family, but he realized he had made a lot of assumptions about him and that none of them were fair. He knew that he wasn’t the only one who held those assumptions either, and Barry wanted to do something about that. He didn’t feel that it was right for those misconceptions to continue, but Davenport didn’t want him to say anything. 

 

“The last thing that I need is them feeling bad for me. I don’t want anyone to change their behavior because they’re afraid of hurting my feelings. I just need to find a way to earn back some respect, or at least have some sway over the decisions we make as a group again. Or to even just get us back to making decisions as a group more consistently.” 

 

“Well to be fair, in Taako’s case it’s not you, personally… I don’t think there’s a level of respect that he could have for anyone that would keep him from going after Lup.”

 

Davenport sighed, sounding defeated. “You’re right about that. I can only hope to have his attention when she’s safe. And I probably lose some of that any time I get in his way when it comes to her. It’s just that...”

 

“They’re both our biggest defenses.” Barry was trying to be impartial, trying to understand Davenport and not project his own feelings. 

 

“Right. Not that we don’t all have our skills, but there’s no denying the fact that we become exponentially more vulnerable without them. Not to mention that things are… things are a lot more somber without them here.” 

 

Barry nodded, distracted by the thought of Lup as he set down a card, prompting Davenport to play a card that won him the game; he looked very pleased with himself. As he gathered the cards up to shuffle them, he talked to Barry while looking down at the cards and stopped making eye contact with him. He figured that Barry might be more comfortable talking and giving actual answers that way. 

 

“What made you so quick to want to follow after Taako?” 

 

Barry cocked his head, confused by the question. “I’m sorry?” 

 

“You didn’t even hesitate. I’m just wondering. You have changed a lot over the years, but I didn’t think you had become that reckless.”

 

Barry fidgeted with his hands under the table. “Well, it was uh, just that she was right there, you know? And then -- it was possible that she could be found and it didn’t feel like something that could wait. Because there was a chance, to save her from uh -- dying or being in any pain. Or being alone, scared.”

 

Davenport glanced over at Barry, but quickly put his attention back on the cards in his hands. 

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Lup scared.”

 

“Well, but I uh- that doesn’t mean that she-”

 

“I know that doesn’t mean that she isn’t or can’t be. I’m certain we all have some of our vulnerable traits pretty well hidden. Hard to keep it all together if you find that everyone is just as scared and just as prone to mistakes as you. That maybe none of us know what we’re doing.”

 

Barry was silent for a moment as he mulled over Davenport’s words.

“Are you afraid that we don’t know what we’re doing?” 

 

Davenport fanned his hand of cards, not looking up as he responded to Barry.

 

“No. I feel certain that we don’t know what we’re doing. But at least we have one thing we can always  _ try  _ to do; find the light, keep a plane from being consumed. Wish we had a better success rate, but what can you do about that? What can you do when you don’t know what you’re doing and you barely have a year to figure it out, over and over and over again?” 

 

Barry fell silent. Davenport was right - it didn’t feel great to know that others felt just as lost and ineffectual as yourself. Then again, it was just further confirmation that he wasn’t entirely dependent on everyone else and that he wasn’t dragging anyone down. He had just as much of a chance as any of them at doing something right, at figuring something out. 

 

“Well, Barry. You know more about me and my weaknesses and fears than I ever intended. Care to share yours?” 

 

Barry tensed. Davenport noticed his sudden shift in comfort as he peered over the cards at him. He looked like he had been caught, confronted, or accused -- just because Davenport asked him a question. There was obviously an answer to that question. A big one. He knew Barry was going to try to tell him something small in comparison, give up some other bit of information that wasn’t the part that terrified him just then. 

 

“Well, I uh-um. I’m - I’m afraid that this is going to go on forever. And I know that’s a grim and unproductive way to look at things. Which leads to my next fear, I guess; that I’m, uh - unproductive. In general. That I’m not doing enough. That I can’t do enough.”

 

Davenport nodded as he set down a card. “I think that’s pretty standard stuff though, Barry. We’re all worried about this not stopping, about not being able to stop it. I’m sure there’s something unique to yourself in your position, maybe something that I could help with. Or, I can at the very least commiserate or be someone that you can vent to.” 

 

Barry felt his hands turn clammy and his breathing fight against him. There was something that Davenport was intentionally trying to pull out of him. His mind was racing trying to think of anything it could have been  _ except for that, he can’t possibly know about that, could he? And why would he want me to tell him? It’s something else, what else, what else is wrong with me, what else have I done…  _

 

“You know you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, Barry. There’s no need to panic.” 

 

_ Gods, he’s inside my head. Is he always doing this? Always in our heads? Fuck, he probably knows all of us better than we know ourselves.  _

 

“Hah, yeah- uh, I guess I just can’t think right now. I’ll- I’ll get back to you on that one.” 

 

Davenport set his cards down and looked to the horizon. “Well. Looks like you’ll have a little while. I think it’s time to move.” 

 

Barry heard the same thunderous rumbling that Davenport had just heard. One of the towering, statue-like stone beings was getting closer to them. They had no idea whether or not they were hostile, or if they even noticed the ship; they may have been too large to even register their existence. But they were taking no risks. The beings moved incredibly slow and it was impossible not to hear them when they were anywhere nearby. They always had plenty of time to fly off and find another stone perch to land on. 

Barry folded up the card table and turned to follow Davenport inside, but not before taking a beat to look out at the massive golem making its way towards them. What he wouldn’t do to get even a sliver of stone off of that thing to examine.

 

***

 

Magnus whipped around and shut the door to the food storage closet behind him as he heard Taako entering the kitchen. 

“Hey, Taako.” 

 

“Yo, Magnus. What have you been stealing from my pantry today?” 

 

“Nothing important. I think. Hey, don’t worry about that, I actually kind of wanted to talk to you.”

 

Taako looked uninterested as he sauntered over to the cupboards above the oven and started grabbing up utensils and cutting boards. “Oh yeah? If it’s about pancakes, we’re gonna have to wait and see if we get to a planet where we can get syrup again, because dry pancakes are a sin in the eyes of every god.” 

 

“No, it’s not that. It’s about last year. I just wanted to ask something...” Magnus leaned against the door behind him and seemed to wilt as he trailed off. Taako took notice of the unusual shift in Magnus’s demeanor.

 

“What’s up, Maggie?” 

 

“-- are you mad that I didn’t go after you? After Lup?”

 

Taako set down the equipment in his hands and sighed. “Magnus. As much as I might deserve a personal bodyguard, you’re not here for just me. You’re here for everyone and I understand and appreciate that. Things are just different for me n’ Lup. You don’t have to go along with it; in fact it’s probably better if you don’t most of the time. If I really do want your help, I’ll ask. But even then, you can still decide whether or not it makes sense, or if I’m just out of my mind over Lup. You’re the tactical officer, right? So, just tactize things and see if they make sense for everyone’s safety or not. I don’t -- I don’t wanna be the guy who gets everyone else killed, y’know?”

 

Magnus cracked a small smile. “Thanks Taako, that - that makes me feel a whole lot better. But, you know -- anytime you really do need my help, I’m here for ya. I was  _ really  _ worried about you both last year.” Magnus paused for a moment and Taako let the silence sit, crossing his arms and leaning back against the counter. He was pretty sure what Magnus was going to try to talk about next. 

 

“You haven’t really said much about it -- you’re both okay, right?” 

 

Taako smiled casually from the corner of his mouth. “Oh hells yeah, it was just sort of a weird, cold space I guess? Kind of passed out or was unconscious for most of it, so it didn’t feel like a whole lot of time.” 

 

“Well that’s good! Or at least, not too bad.” 

 

“Yeah it’s all cool, don’t even worry about it..” 

 

After another extended moment of silence, Taako internally sighed because he didn’t  _ really  _ want to get into a whole thing. But they were already talking, so-

 

“Magnus. How do you feel about our chances?” 

 

Magnus gave him a quizzical look. “Huh?” 

 

“I mean- I’m just wondering what you think about all of this. Think it’s gonna stop? And I mean like stop because we finally actually do something about it, not stop because we eventually beef it for real.” 

 

Magnus smiled and looked off thoughtfully. “Yeah, I think so.” He straightened, standing up from leaning against the pantry door and set his hands on his hips and looked to Taako. “And then we’ll still hang out, right? Find some new adventures?”

 

Taako rolled his eyes. Gods did he miss the point. “I mean, I’ll probably be pretty famous for being one of the saviors of the universe and all that, and I for one intend to bask in that glory and not continue to put myself in more danger for the hell of it.” 

 

Magnus’s brightly smiling face fell and Taako could feel the disappointment radiating from him. 

“Ugh, I mean yeah we can hang out, just be prepared for the fact that my idea of life after stopping the apocalypse is probably going to be different from yours.” 

 

Magnus’s smile returned immediately and Taako wondered how he wasn’t in a constant state of whiplash from his own emotional tendencies. 

 

They were interrupted by the deep sound of an echoing boom from outside. They heard someone coming in from the deck and shortly after, the ship was humming as Davenport prepared to move them. Barry came into the kitchen and addressed Taako and Magnus. 

 

“Guess we’re getting out of here.” 

 

“Yeah, no duh Barold, I think we all can hear those noisy fuckers no matter where we are.” 

 

Barry just shrugged. “Yeah, okay Taako, nice talking to you, too.” 

 

Taako huffed, exasperated, and stopped Barry before he walked off. He put a hand on Barry’s shoulder and looked at him apologetically.

“Barry…”

 

“Yes?” 

 

 “Don’t be such a weenie.” 

 

Barry laughed and batted Taako’s hand away. “Hah, you first.” 

***

 

After Taako chased Magnus out of the kitchen so that he could cook, Magnus found Lup out in the common room with her feet kicked up on the table, drawing in a sketchbook. He flopped down next to her, upsetting the cushion she was sitting on and causing her hand to slip, dragging a pencil mark across the page.

 

“Ah shit, Lup I’m sorry.” 

 

“Nah, it’s cool, I meant to do that.” Lup closed her sketchbook and set it on the side table next to the couch. “What’s going on, bud?” 

 

“Not much, got kicked out of the kitchen.” 

 

Lup laughed. “Well yeah, you take up too much room! Look at you; you’re built like a damn train. Can barely get around ya in the kitchen.” 

 

Magnus chuckled. “Well, I don’t know about thaaat.”

 

“Don’t be coy, you know you’re a beast of a man.” Lup picked her sketchbook back up and flipped through the pages to find the spot where she left off. 

 

“Whatchya been drawing?” 

 

“Oh you know, just doodling.”

 

Magnus leaned over a bit to see the page Lup was working on. It was filled with dense, dark lined objects and scratchy shading. Everything looked hurried, rushed.

 

“That’s pretty different lookin’ than your usual style.” 

 

Lup shrugged as she continued to draw, not looking up from the page. “Eh, guess it’s something to do when you’re bored.” 

 

Magnus nodded. “Yeah, it really sucks that there’s not a whole lot to do outside here. Just rocks forever.” 

 

Magnus watched Lup drawing; it looked less like boredom and a lot more like frustration. 

 

“I hope you were okay last year? You haven’t said much about it.”

 

Lup continued to not look up from her sketching as she went over already darkened lines with her pencil. “Don’t worry big guy, your girl can handle anything.” 

 

“Okay.” Magnus sounded just the slightest bit dejected. “But, if you ever do need to talk to someone…” 

 

“Of course, Mags.” Lup looked up and gave him a genuine smile, thinking that was all he needed. But, Magnus seemed hesitant to say something else, so Lup gave him a second.

 

“I feel like we haven’t hung out much lately? I was wondering if there was maybe a reason?”

 

Lup’s brow furrowed in worry. “Oh dang, bud, no I’m sorry. I guess I’ve kind of gotten pretty consumed with work. Need to make more time for my pal for sure.” Lup gave Magnus a punch on the arm at medium strength, and he returned the gesture. Lup rubbed at her arm where he had tagged her. 

 

“Dang Mags, you working out especially hard this year or what? Got a little more muscle behind that than usual.” 

 

Magnus leaned back and put his hands up, immediately apologetic. “Oh shit, I’m sorry Lup.”

 

“No that wasn’t me complaining. I’m coolsies, trust. Just noticing. You don’t know your own strength anymore.”

 

Magnus beamed. “It’s been a lot more fun having a work-out buddy, even if it’s only a couple times a week. Been getting way more into it.”

 

Lup tried to keep a neutral face. “Oh that’s right; Barry’s been working with you.” 

 

“Yeah! Man, that guy keeps busy between me and Taako and especially you.” 

 

Lup did her best not to nervously laugh. “Hah, what do you mean especially me?”

 

“Well I mean, you two do spend the most time together working.”

 

_ Of course that’s what he meant, what did you think he meant?  _

 

“Yeah, that’s right; we do. But! I need to make more time for my buddy. Not a lot to do on this planet but uhhh, I guess we could see how far those guns of yours can launch some rocks for me to blow up. Get a little shot-put practice for you, and aiming practice for me?” 

 

“Lup.” Magnus’s face became serious and his eyes lit up. “That sounds really  _ really  _ fun.” 

 

Lup laughed and leaned back into the couch, closing her sketchbook and setting it aside again, then gave herself a moment. She folded her hands on her lap and sighed, trying to look as unaffected as she could. 

 

“It kind of — it  _ really  _ sucked.”

 

Magnus shifted in his seat to more fully face Lup. “What’s that?”

 

“Last year. It was… worse than I’ve been making it sound. I’m just not really into the idea of thinking about it a whole lot right now.”

 

Magnus looked down and nodded, wondering how bad it was, what her and Taako went through. He looked up to meet her eyes and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. 

 

“I’m sorry… that I didn’t go after you.”

 

Lup gave a disappointed sigh and shook her head. “Ah, no bud… see, that’s exactly what I was afraid of. It wasn’t anyone’s fault and there sure as hell wasn't anything anyone could have done about it.”

 

Magnus nodded and lowered his hand. Lup reached over to pat him on the back. 

“There’s nothing for you to feel bad about, Mags, seriously. You can’t be everywhere at once. You staying with everyone else was the best thing to do, trust me. You would’ve just ended up in the same sitch as me and Taako, and you wouldn’t have been any good to anyone that way.” 

 

Magnus smiled a bit as he looked up at Lup. “Well. If you do feel like talking about it sometime, you know where to find me.”

 

Lup smiled. “Yeah, face-first in the pantry. Gotchya.”

 

Magnus laughed and shoved Lup’s shoulder and Lup shoved him back, harder. She got up from the couch and roughed up Magnus’s hair before going to see if Taako needed help. She hesitated before walking off. 

 

“Thank you for wanting to talk and -- for caring so much. Really, Magnus. Thank you.” 

 

***

 

“We haven’t really talked about it.”

 

“Well. What’s there to say. It pretty much sucked.” Taako was lying down, staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his head. 

 

Lup rolled over on the bed to lie on her stomach, her face almost entirely buried in a pillow. “But still. It more than just sucked.”

 

“At least it felt like we were mostly unconscious for it.” 

 

Lup buried her head further into the pillow, her voice muffled to the point of being barely audible. “Yeah, but when we weren’t-”

 

“When we weren’t, it felt like we had been dunked in cold acid, or at least that’s the best way I can think of to describe it.”

 

Lup lifted up her head to look at Taako, hugging the pillow underneath her. “Ooh, yeah that’s a good way of putting it. It was like… tingly? It felt like being made out of static.” 

 

“Yeah, sounds like we pretty much got the same effect. So what else is there to go over? I think that’s it.”

 

“Ko…”

 

Taako stayed silent; he had been trying to avoid thinking about it too much, and he couldn’t decide whether or not Lup was right for wanting to talk about it. How could that actually help? 

 

Lup inched closer to her brother and she spoke in a hushed tone. “You saw it too, right?” 

 

Taako thought back on the view from the icy blue pods hung from the ceiling that they were floating in. The pods that hundreds of cloudy, hard to discern figures were floating in, all around them. The pods that were plucked like apples at random by some rubbery-looking, sickly green tendril, bent in a series of angles, almost like a tower of elbows attached to each other to create a sort of tentacular limb. It would pick its target and drag it down into the inky blackness below. And then, there would be nothing. Nothing to see or do or think until it came back again and picked another pod. 

 

Taako’s eyes glazed over as he stared at nothing. “Yeah. I saw.”

 

“I’m glad, uh… I’m glad we were back on the ship before it could… pick us.” 

 

Taako snorted. “For real, I was not at all interested in finding out what was at the other end of that thing.” 

“It was pretty scary. And I did not like how long it lasted. Even though we were in and out of consciousness -- I could  _ feel  _ how long it was. It was- i-it was-”

Taako heard Lup’s voice shake a bit and he at once sat up, no longer concerned with trying to avoid the conversation. Why was he being so stupid and stubborn? And  _ selfish? _ Obviously she brought it up because she needed to talk about it. He pet her head as she slumped face first back into the pillow. 

“I know, LuLu. I’m sorry. It was-” Taako sucked air through his teeth, as if it were painful to talk about. “It was bad. It was  _ really  _ bad. All there was to do was be afraid. It was fucking horrible. I -- I was just as afraid of that thing as I was of even being there. I just wanted to be back on the ship. I was --” Taako held back an involuntary sob as he continued to pet Lup’s head. “I was scared and just wanted to go home.” 

Hearing himself say those words was too much to keep back the tears. Lup lifted herself up from the pillow and sat in front of Taako, leaning into his arms and wrapping her own around him. They set their heads on each other’s shoulders, holding onto each other the way that they wished they could have when they were in that dark, cold place. 

Being scared and wanting to go home and -- not being able to. It was a feeling that was far, far behind them, but a familiar feeling nonetheless. And, it was a feeling that neither of them could process without the other. 

***

 

“I haven’t seen you paint much lately, Luc. What’s up?”

 

Lucretia turned around to see Merle in the doorway, opening with a comment that felt like it should have been halfway through a conversation. “Oh -- well, hello to you too, Merle.” 

 

Merle stepped the rest of the way into the sun room, helping himself to a seat next to her on the short wall bordering the garden and looked at her expectantly. 

“I guess I just haven’t had the chance to.” 

 

“Well, maybe you should make some time! You’re real good at it.” 

 

“Thank you, Merle, but uh… I don’t know if that’s something that I should be making time for.” 

 

“Whaddya mean by that? Why not?”

 

Lucretia’s eyes darted back and forth, looking for a way to change the subject or for an answer to give that wouldn’t prompt more questions, but was coming up empty. 

“I- I guess it’s just not as important as the other things that I have to do. Or, should do.” 

 

“Well yeah, gotta prioritize. But you should still make time for the stuff ya like doing! Everybody else does. Otherwise you just get burnt out from this-” Merle waved a hand around, indicating towards everything, “-stuff.” 

 

“That makes sense. Thank you, Merle.” 

 

Merle regarded Lucretia for a moment, sensing that there was more and that even though she agreed, she hadn’t been properly motivated. 

“C’mon, Luc. What’s got ya down? It’s me. Merle.”

 

Lucretia laughed a little bit. “I know it’s you, Merle.” She breathed in a bit, preparing to start what would most likely end up being a long conversation, knowing Merle.

“I suppose that I feel like I’ve got the luxury of being in less danger and having more time on my hands than everyone else. It doesn’t feel fair to spend that time on hobbies.”

 

Merle looked shocked. “You’re always busy as heck! You write so, so much. Everything!”

 

“Yes, well -- I  _ am  _ pretty fast at it, and my writing and editing process only gets faster and easier. So, it often feels like I have the same amount of work as always, but I’m not really growing beyond that.” 

 

Merle took on a serious tone to his voice and looked sternly at Lucretia. 

“Sounds like you’re punishing yourself for something that only you think is wrong.” 

 

Lucretia exhaled, feeling defeated from being pressed to go over her insecurities. 

“I guess I am. But, isn’t it still true?” 

 

“Naw, it isn’t. Just because you’re better at what you do than ever doesn’t mean that you’re selfish for enjoying some of your spare time. And it especially doesn’t mean that you should be getting upset at yourself.” 

 

Lucretia looked towards the ground, thinking. Merle would not stop staring at her to see if his words were getting through to her or not, and she was painfully aware of that. 

 

Merle shrugged his shoulders, his palms out. “And hey, you never know! Your painting skills might come in handy someday. Can’t really discount anything when everything is possible.”

 

“Hah. I guess that is a good point. Though I don’t really see how it could come in handy.” 

 

“Didn’t you trade a bunch of stories for pretty much all of our supplies that year on that one planet? Lessee, that was-” Merle counted on his fingers for a moment before giving up. “Eh, it all sort of runs together, but you remember what I’m talking about.” 

 

Lucretia laughed softly. “Yes, I believe that was our thirty fifth year in the city S’lebbe, planet Elestione.”

 

“See? You’re a walking, talking encyclopedia of everything we’ve ever done! Nobody else can do that!” 

 

“I know. I just don’t know how helpful that is. We’ve had some pretty rough years lately and writing down every bad thing that happens -- I just look at these situations over and over again. I write them out quickly, make notes, write them in detail later, make edits, write finalized versions -- and I know it’s always easier to look at things in hindsight, but it’s just that as I read these incidents over and over, all I can think about is what could have been done, how things could have been different. How everyone did everything they could and it still turned out bad. And my only contribution is writing it all down. Writing down every terrible detail. Doesn’t really feel like helping.” 

 

“I think that’s exactly why you should paint, Luc. You’re stewing on every  _ bad _ thing that’s happened to  _ everyone. _ You need to take some time for  _ positive _ things just for  _ you. _ You don’t want to get burnt out and no one wants to see you being sad or not enjoying yourself. And besides, you made everyone so happy with that painting you did of us at the beach! And that’s something  _ really  _ important that helps everyone -- capturing those moments that are good and not letting the bad ones take over, you know? Making sure that we keep those memories so that we never forget what we’re doing this all for.” 

 

“That… I didn’t think of it like that. I will keep that in mind.”

 

“And you’ll paint?”

 

“Yes, Merle. I’ll take time to paint again.” 

 

“Good!” Merle hopped down from the retaining wall and looked at Lucretia expectantly as she remained sitting. 

 

“What. Now?” 

 

“Why not?” 

 

Lucretia shook her head and laughed. 

“Hah, okay. I guess it’s better than sitting here.”

 

“Sure is! Staying still is no fun.” 

 

“I suppose you’re right. I’ll go and get started on something.” Lucretia straightened her glum posture and sat up.

 

“Atta girl!”

 

Lucretia grimaced. “Don’t -- don’t call me ‘girl’.”

 

“Oh, right, sorry. Atta woman!” 

 

Lucretia laughed through a hand over her mouth. They left the sun room and she parted ways with Merle. 

 

***

 

After Merle left the sun room, he made his way towards the deck, wandering for the hell of it but also wondering where Davenport might have been. The only person out on the deck at the time though was Taako. Merle waved then walked over and leaned against the railing next to him. Taako looked down at Merle. 

 

“How are you and Morrisey doing?” 

 

Merle squinted at Taako. “What’s that?”

 

“The Hunger, Merle. It’s like you don’t even listen to me when I say cool jokes.” 

 

“No no, I remember now, I get it. It’s uh -- it’s going.”

 

Taako turned halfway from the railing, leaning one elbow on the top rail and facing Merle. “How are you doing with all of that? Like, what’s your take? Where do you think it’s going?” 

 

Merle sighed, looking genuinely bothered, a rare look for him. “Well, for one thing, I’m pretty tired of getting killed.” 

 

Taako snorted through an abrupt laugh. “Yeah, that’s gotta suck big time.”

 

“And, I just don’t know if I’m getting through. Or how much good it’s doing. I’m going to keep at it, but maybe I’m wasting my time. Doesn’t really seem like the type of guy to change his mind about things, but I sure am trying to get him to.”

 

Taako narrowed his eyes, all at once confused and accusatory. “That’s… that’s really what you’re doing? Trying to convince him, not just get more info?”

 

“I’m doing that, too! I thought maybe I could do more than just that, though. I’ve gotten some pretty stubborn people to listen to me before.” 

 

“You’ve definitely got that going for you. I think mainly because you can out-stubborn damn near anyone. But, something tells me that trying to out-stubborn an unstoppable cosmic force that eats worlds alive might be a bit harder than what you’re used to, to put it uh-  _ extremely  _ lightly.”  

 

Merle shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I can’t try.” 

 

“I guess that’s a thing you can say.” Taako turned to lean fully on the railing and look off into the far distance of never-ending gray rock valleys and peaks. Merle set his elbows on the middle rail and looked out in the same direction. 

 

“This isn’t very fun.” 

 

“Well yeah, not really staring off into the distance for a good time, Merle.” 

 

“Then why?” 

 

“Just thinking.” 

 

Merl cocked his head. “About?”

 

“Does it matter?”

 

“Matters to me.”

 

Taako sighed, vaguely annoyed. “I don’t know. I guess that I’m hoping if we do ever get the Hunger to stop chomping down worlds that we don’t end up stuck somewhere like this.”

 

“Well, we could always fly somewhere else.”

 

Taako rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Unless the ship gets destroyed and we all nearly get destroyed, and then if any of us are still alive, we could end up stuck somewhere shitty like this.” 

 

“Well that sure is grim.” 

 

Taako looked back down at Merle. “You never think about worst case scenarios?”

 

“Nope!”

 

“Shit. Must be nice.” 

 

Merle turned to look at Taako and crossed his arms assertively. “Well.  _ You  _ don’t have to, either.” 

 

“Pfft. Sure, I’ll try that out.” 

 

“See to it that you do, friend! In the meantime, I’m going to go find something to do that isn’t so gloomy and boring.”

 

“Mmhmm. See ya later, Merle.” 

Taako continued to stare out into the middle distance but after a while realized that if there was nothing else to do, he could at least get some reading done. Best thing he could do was keep boning up on spells that he already knew and learning some new ones. He hoped that doing all that work might matter someday. 

***

“Oh gods, Ko… you thought him holding my hair back was bad? If you saw some of the moments we’ve had… And I don’t know if those things happen because he feels something, too? Or what if they happen just because he’s so incredibly nice, and I’ve been just basking in these moments that-” Lup’s voice trembled from saying the thoughts that had been plaguing her out loud, “-these moments that I want to mean more than they do. I can have a gut feeling, I can guess, I can hope, but I can’t know for sure what these things are.” 

“And-” Lup exhaled roughly as she dropped her shoulders “-the other thing I worry about is… he’s kind of passive, right? I mean, he’s changed a lot, he stands up to stuff. But when things are cool and nice, he’s just -- I think things have to reach a certain point before he would ever get into any sort of conflict. And I just kind of do things and go for stuff; you know me. What if all of these signs I think I might be seeing are just him being too nice to set boundaries with me? I mean, I was the one who asked him to hold back my hair. And then, I’ve asked him to, uh...”

 

Taako leaned in. “Oh shit, what is it? You can’t just trail off, you’ve  _ got  _ to tell me.” 

 

“I uh. One of the times that you were gone, I hadn’t slept and I -- just really didn’t want to be in our room.” 

 

Taako’s eyes widened, and he had to work at not looking  _ too  _ excited. 

“LuLu, what what what tell me tell me.” 

 

Lup glowered darkly at Taako. “Hey, you’re not allowed to enjoy this so much!”

 

“Okay, okay, just pleeease tell me already.”

 

Lup exhaled, and looked down at her hands, fidgeting nervously. “Alright. I didn’t want to be in our room. And I was just… feeling lonely and having a hard time doing anything without you. Hard to eat, sleep...” 

 

Taako’s face softened and he stopped looking so excited; he knew the feeling she was talking about. He let her continue without interjecting again, even though she kept pausing for way too long and he was  _ dying. _

 

“I asked him to help with my hair, and -- shit, that seems to be a theme, huh?”

 

“Maybe it’s a kink.”

 

Lup tapped Taako’s arm with her fist.  _ “Shut up.” _

 

Taako rubbed his arm, but was too engrossed to fake being horribly injured to mess with her. 

“Just go on, go on.” 

 

“Well, somehow we ended up, um. Sitting on his bed while he was helping me-”

 

“SOMEHOW?” Taako slammed his hands down on the mattress. His eyes lit up and he was completely unable to hide how delicious, yet frustrating, he was finding it all. “SOMEHOW, LUP?  _ SOmEHOW?” _

 

She sneered at him, on the verge of actually getting annoyed. “I can just stop talking about it now if you’re not even going to let me get through the whole thing.” 

 

“THERE’S MORE? Hoo, you are  _ killing  _ me. Okay, okay… just let me breathe for a second. Alright-” Taako inhaled deeply and dropped his face, looking serious. He badly wanted the rest of the story, but it was so hard not to say anything. “I won’t interrupt again.” 

 

Lup narrowed her eyes at him before continuing. “Okay. So. Umm… I was just. Really tired and sad and- sitting there was the first time I had felt comfortable or relaxed at all for a while.” 

Taako had to put a hand over his mouth to hide his giddy smile; the anticipation was still too much for him. 

 

“Hey, assface, this is sad shit. Sad shit about  _ you. _ ” 

 

Taako just nodded, but couldn’t uncover his mouth because he was going to lose control if he did. 

 

“Alright, so I was sad and tired and he was just -- so damn gentle with my hair, and it was relaxing, and I… okay.” Lup quickly breathed in and out. “I fucking lied down on his damn bed and had him cuddle me to sleep and I asked if it was okay, and of  _ course  _ he said yeah, because what was he going to do? Say no? When I was all super sad? Of course not. Barry just wouldn’t do that.”

 

Taako hung his head with his hands on either side of his face as if he needed to hold in his utter disbelief. “How, Lu? HOW? How are you able to think that there’s nothing going on?” 

 

“Because, like I was saying, that was all me! I made all of that happen, not him. I could have been crossing a boundary without even knowing it. It’s not like he would get upset at me or something, and he would do anything to be nice, probably even stuff that makes him uncomfortable. In fact, I  _ know  _ that he absolutely does stuff he wouldn’t normally do, for everyone. And even though I knew that,” Lup’s voice tapered off, the regret in her voice evident, “I knew that about him, and I asked for something like that, anyways. Oh, Ko...”

 

Lup lifted the pillow she had been fidgeting with on her lap and stuffed her face into it. 

  
  


Knowing how absolutely ridiculous the both of them were being - and seeing Lup like she was - had Taako  _ badly  _ wanting to say something. He had no idea how he hadn’t caved already. But — really, he did know. For one, they needed to figure it out on their own, and there was a lot more to consider than just their dumb crushes on each other. And for two -- he couldn’t imagine what Lup might do or say if she found out that he had known for over two decades and hadn’t said anything. 

 

He had to at least say  _ something,  _ though. 

 

“So, check this out -- back on the beach world, the reason he wanted me to teach him how to swim was so that he wouldn’t look bad. He said in front of everyone at first, but then he  _ specifically  _ mentioned you. He seemed pretty concerned about looking bad in front of you.”

 

Lup’s breath hitched and she looked up from the pillow. But she refused to get her hopes up, especially over something that small and easily explained away. 

“Well. First off, that was forever ago. Second, he’s been learning all kinds of stuff. And, we go out into the field together more than anyone else, and I know he’s felt self conscious about keeping up with me. He has a long history of worrying about being a burden, and everyone knows that I kick pretty much every ass in existence. I’m not surprised that he would mention me specifically because he’s probably the most self conscious around me; I mean who wouldn’t be?” 

 

Taako wanted to scream. It was seriously getting to be too much.  

“LuLu. Why don’t you just go for it? See what happens?” 

 

Lup rolled her eyes and flopped backwards onto the bed. “I can’t take the risk of ‘just going for it’, because if I’m wrong? If I’m wrong, and I have to stay here on this ship with him and work with him and see him all of the time? And be reminded over and over about the worst rejection of my life? And if we did get together, what if it’s not right? What if we’re fooling ourselves because we’re in a damn fishbowl and there’s no one else? What if I find out that everything I was feeling wasn’t based on reality and would have been better if it just stayed in my head? What if he finds out that  _ he  _ feels like that? And then we don’t actually end up working, but everything would be fucked and it’s not something that can be taken back.” Lup rambled herself into a sad state. She pressed her lips together, determined to stop; that sort of negative spiraling was  _ not her. _

 

Taako took in a deep breath and readied himself to switch gears. He needed her to figure things out and to not be in so much turmoil over it all, or else he was going to have to tell her more -- or he might even need to talk to Barry. She needed something to work on, something to do rather than just agonize over it. The two of them had to figure it out, soon. And ultimately, it would be better if they did it on their own. All of Lup’s points were valid, as much as it annoyed him to acknowledge that. He would be devastated if he pushed them into something that didn’t end up working out and Lup got her heart broken -- and if that happened, he would have to kill Barry. Every year. 

 

“If you’re having this much doubt, maybe you need to think on it more? There’s time, LuLu, and you can take as long as you need to think this through. And, if you can get to a place where you feel confident and don’t doubt it so much, then maybe it  _ is  _ good and it  _ will  _ work out. Just give it some thought, maybe try to suss out things with Barry, start trying to figure out what he might be feeling without him knowing, y’know? Take small steps, drop small hints, look for small things. You don’t have to jump in all at once, but start looking out for good things. You’re real honed in on the bad right now and I think it might help if you start thinking about what  _ could  _ work instead of everything that could go wrong.” 

 

Lup felt tears forming in her eyes, and her lip trembled as she smiled. She leaned over and gathered her brother up in a hug.

“Thank you.” 

“Don’t get tears on my sweater.” 

 

…

 

Barry left his room to the sounds of screeching laughter and loud thuds from down the hall and smiled to himself. The sounds meant that Lup and Taako were happy, which made him happy. Even though it felt like Lup had been avoiding him a bit, and he was worried about the obvious air of tension between the two of them, the thing that he had been the most worried about was that she hadn’t seemed very happy so far that year. And no matter how she felt about him -- her being happy was the only thing that mattered. 

 

***

 

Barry heard a knock at his door. He panicked and quickly stuffed away the notebook he had been diligently writing in for the past hour. He answered his door to Lup, who was looking sullen and apologetic. 

 

“Hey, Barry.” 

 

He felt relieved to see her, to talk to her outside of the precious little work they had done together in their barren world. 

 

“Hi, Lup.” Barry got lost in looking at her until she raised an eyebrow at him. He shook himself out of his stupor and stood aside to let her in.

 

“Sorry, uh, wasn’t expecting uh- yeah, come in.” 

 

Lup walked straight in and limply sat down on his bed. Barry closed the door, leaving it just barely cracked open. Why did he feel like he would be trapping her if it was closed all the way? Why was he always thinking about everything, too much, all the time? 

 

“I’m sorry I’ve been kinda avoiding you.” Lup’s face was sad as she looked down at the floor. Barry stood in front of her, barely having moved away from the door. He didn’t know what to do, where to be in proximity to her, he -- gods, was he really going to get that uncomfortable again any time any little thing went wrong? Or was he feeling particularly nervous because of what he had just been writing...

 

“Oh- no, Lup, that’s okay.”

 

Lup shook her head. “No Barry, it’s not. It’s always better to talk about things and I’ve been taking the easy way out.”

 

“I promise, Lup I- I’m okay. You can always take all the time you need, whenever you need it. I’ll always understand.”

 

Lup looked up at Barry and smiled gratefully. 

“Why do you have to be so good all of the time?”  

 

Barry almost choked on his breath. There was… something in her voice. And what did she just say? And her voice… but she was probably feeling really vulnerable, coming to him and apologizing like that. So,  _ her voice.  _ It was like — a version of tenderness from her that felt different. It was because she was apologizing. And vulnerable. 

 

“Well, anyways. I’m done taking time, and I guess we’ve got to talk about what happened last year.” Lup stopped herself just as she was about to invite Barry to sit on the bed next to her. He looked so uncomfortable; but was that because he didn’t know where to sit and he was too damn polite, or was it because she was in his space unexpectedly and he didn’t like that sort of thing? She had only ever been in his room when something was wrong. Maybe under normal circumstances it wasn’t something that he liked. Everyone deserved to have their own space, afterall. They were already cramped and close enough to each other all the time as it was. 

 

“We could go talk on the deck if you wanted to? The sky is really clear here and we haven’t gone star-gazing yet.” 

 

“Yeah. Let’s uh - let’s do that.”

 

…

 

They made their way to the deck and walked to the far end that was overlooking the endless pits and valleys of stone. The deep places were filled in with foggy black and the rising hills and peaks were turned silver in the bright starlight. Lup was silent and Barry waited, giving her room to gather her thoughts. 

 

After a while of taking in the view in front of them, she hung her head and sighed. 

“I just really don’t like making mistakes, Barry. And on top of that, it was something that could have been so easily avoided. And -- it could have ended up a lot worse than it did. This ship is integral to our survival... I don’t know, maybe I’m being dramatic. It was just smoke. Really awful smoke, but -- I cannot  _ ever  _ put this ship, or any of us, in even the tiniest amount of danger ever again. And I know that it was just as much my fault as it was... it was  _ our  _ fault, and I haven’t been avoiding you because I blame you - I hope you haven’t been thinking that. I mean really, more than anything I was beating myself up and, not only did that make me feel like being alone, I didn’t want to bring that negativity around you. I -- prefer being around you in a good mood I guess, and I’ve already had you comfort me through some tough stuff before. That doesn’t need to be your job all the time.”

 

Barry felt just the slightest bit injured; he would never describe  _ anything  _ he ever did for Lup as a ‘job’. He hoped that she didn’t really feel like that, and he hoped that he hadn’t done something to make her feel that way. He wondered what he could to make sure that she never thought that being there for her was anything less than an honor to him. 

“Lup, you -- you’ve comforted me plenty, too. And -- at one of the most important times that… that first time. That was one of the most important moments to m- you really kept me from going to an especially dark place that night, and I will never forget that. You have never brought me down or been a source of negativity around me, ever. Completely the opposite, I - there’s a lot that I don’t know how I would’ve made it through if you hadn’t been- if you hadn’t been my friend.” 

 

Lup couldn’t find words -- or maybe it was that there were so many, jumbled up and unable to be strung together properly, that she couldn’t get them out. She nervously tapped her foot and looked out into the night sky. She wasn’t going to ask him for physical contact; their conversation was plenty enough. It was enough for her, it was all she needed. She didn’t need to hug him, to hold on to him, to bury her face into him, to be warmed by him in the ever so slightly chill evening air, to feel his chest rise and fall against her as he breathed, to fall in sync with him, to fall asleep on him, to hold him for a long time, to be held…

She didn’t  _ need  _ those things. She needed Barry. She had Barry. That was enough. 

 

***

“Lup! Pull!” 

 

Magnus launched a rock the size of his head into the air off of the side of the ship deck. Lup jumped into a dramatic sort of battle-ready pose, arm extended, and reduced the rock to a fine powder with a single burst of flame. 

 

“Dang that looks fun.” Merle was walking out onto the deck, dragging the folding card table behind him with Davenport following him. 

 

“I could throw you, if you want Merle.” 

 

Merle stopped in his tracks and tapped a finger against his lips. “Hmmm…”

 

Davenport gawked. “Merle -- you’re not- you’re not actually thinking of that? I’m pretty sure Magnus was joking.” 

 

“Welll, I could be  _ not  _ joking if you really wanted me to…” 

 

Davenport pinched the bridge of his nose. “Absolutely not. Merle, you are  _ not  _ getting launched off the side of the ship.” 

 

Merle just tilted his head in sincere contemplation. “Could be pretty exhilarating.”

 

“You are a nightmare sometimes, you know that? Come on, you can’t die until I beat you three out of five.” 

 

“Pfft, we’ll see about that.” Merle continued dragging the table behind him towards the center of the deck, every once in a while glancing over at Magnus hucking rocks off of the side of the ship.

 

Lucretia sat at the opposite side of the deck with a sketchbook, diligently practicing lighting and shading studies, using the dramatic stone landscape as an incredibly effective guide. She waved at Merle as he looked over from setting up the table for him and Davenport. 

 

Taako was lounging not far from Lup and Magnus in one of the fold-out deck chairs, looking bored. As Magnus readied another rock to throw, Taako muttered something under his breath. Just as the rock was leaving Magnus’s hand, the shape and color of it started to change. Once it was well into the air, it fully formed into a chocolate cake that was promptly destroyed by the already-in-motion magic missile that Lup had shot at it. Taako laughed as Magnus turned around to look at him, shocked and disappointed. 

 

“Don’t worry Maggie; cake from a rock woulda tasted terrible.” 

 

Magnus’s face screwed up into a grimace as he thought of something. “Hey, that’s right… Why didn’t you just transmute something into syrup when you talked about pancakes?” 

 

“First off, I  _ mentioned  _ them, I did not talk about them. Second, I was having myself a lazy day, not a make-pancakes-for-Magnus-day.” 

 

...

 

They were in an arguably pretty shit world, but everyone seemed happy being crowded out on the deck of the ship with each other. Barry watched from a little ways down the deck as Lup delighted in obliterating rocks, even though at that point in her ever-growing magical prowess, she could have probably easily destroyed a mountain if she wanted to. He felt sure that her glee had at least something to do with how happy it was making Magnus, despite Taako’s occasional interference. At some point, Magnus went from mild disappointment to being excited about what ridiculous thing Taako might transmute next, whenever he felt bored enough to mess with them again. Merle and Davenport were laughing in between extended moments of intense concentration and competitive jabs at each other. Lucretia smiled as she looked over her sketches, obviously happy with what she had accomplished so far that day. And Barry was lost in watching Lup, elated to see her happy, relieved that they were talking normally again. His heart sped as he mulled over some of the words that he had been writing in the notebook that he made sure was well hidden in his room. He tried to think about which words fit, which probably needed to go, what else he hadn’t thought of to include that he should. He was suddenly struck by a few ideas that he didn’t want to forget, so he began to head inside. Lup took notice and called over her shoulder to him. 

 

“Aw, you getting bored, Bear?”

 

“Oh, no. I’ll be right back, just thought of something that I need to do real quick.” He barely skipped a beat as he quickly walked towards the door, repeating the words in his head so that he wouldn’t forget any before he got to his room. Lup eyed him suspiciously, but her attention was torn away from trying to figure out Barry’s abrupt departure. 

 

“Lup! Pull!” 

  
  
  



	45. I Love You, I'm Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Forty Five

 

Lup,

 

I don’t want to start with a long buildup to what I have to say. I won’t put you through what will most definitely be an insufferable, rambling explanation. I’m just going to get the important part out of the way, and then depending on how you feel, you can decide if it’s worth your time to keep reading. 

I love you.

 

If you’re still reading this and not coming to find me to tell me everything that’s wrong with that statement, or making plans on how to avoid me for the rest of eternity, then… actually, I’m going to assume that I’m talking to myself from this point on. So, I’ll just get all of this off of my chest and onto this paper, and maybe you’ll come find me and I hope that we’ll at least still be talking, and then I can stop being  _ this  _  - the type of person who writes you a letter confessing their love  - and I can instead be the type of person who will be a better friend. If you’ll still have me. 

 

I remember when I first realized it, and this is going to be the second hardest thing to admit, because it was so long ago. It was a very, very long time ago, Lup, and I never wanted you to be uncomfortable, I didn’t want to lose you as a friend -- so I never said anything. But maybe this is even worse; waiting this long to tell you, and you having to deal with knowing that I’ve been feeling this way the whole time. It sounds like a betrayal, and I don’t blame you if you feel that it is. You’re my best friend, Lup, and I tell you everything, but none of that makes up for me keeping this from you and I know that. Because I fell in love with you thirty six years ago. That’s… the first time I’ve seen that written down or said in any way at all, and I’m realizing now how truly awful it is that I never told you. 

It was the first night that we watched the stars together out on the deck, right after you caught me breaking down. It was after you listened to my fears, validated me, consoled me. You said that you admired me wearing my feelings on my sleeve, and then I went and held back the most important feeling of all from you. And… the fact that it was you, the most amazing person I’ve ever met (I’m fairly certain the most amazing person to ever exist) -- I realized that I wasn’t ashamed. Because it was  _ you  _ caring for me, it was  _ you  _ seeing me at a dark and weak point, and that seems like it should be the opposite, that I would be especially ashamed because it was someone as strong and important as you seeing me like that. I don’t know how to explain it though; you just make everything better. I felt it all the way back then that you were someone that could be trusted with anything, who could make things amazing just by being part of them, someone to be admired, someone to be adored… someone who deserves everything. And believe me, Lup, I know that’s not me. I’m not trying to say that it is at all. It’s silly for me to love you, because I know that you deserve everything, the best that life has to offer. 

You’ve been so kind to me, unreasonably kind. And I don't know if what I’m doing right now is a kindness or not. I felt sure when I started this that it was right to tell you everything, that it would be part of being kind, to not continue to keep you in the dark. But, what if I find out that you would have rather not known? That everything was okay and I upset the balance and that I’m actually being selfish by needing you to know and by needing to put the weight of my feelings on you? I guess I won’t know whether this was a mistake or not until after I give you this letter. 

 

Anyways, Lup. I love you. I probably did from the moment I met you, but when I knew, it was that night. 

 

I promise you that I’ve done nothing but my best to not let it affect any of my decisions or actions around you. Sometimes I couldn’t think, couldn’t talk or breathe for a moment, and I’ve felt like parts of my brain were inaccessible because being around you takes up all of the space in my head, but every decision I’ve ever made has been with you in mind. With your comfort, with your happiness, and not based off of my stupid crush. Or, I at least hope that I did an okay job at that. 

 

I am  _ so  _ sorry that you felt safe coming into my tent that year where it suddenly turned cold. And I am  _ so, so  _ sorry for asking if you needed to be held. You felt safe with me, but I wonder if you still would have if you’d known. I promise that I asked only because you were shivering, only because I couldn’t stand you being in any discomfort. I would have done that for you no matter what. But I am still sorry that you didn’t know at the time that I loved you. 

I’m sorry that I hugged you and held onto you that year at that dance place. I was overwhelmed. Seeing someone dare to treat you badly kind of made me lose my shit. I just wanted to wrap you up, to care for you, as if I could negate what happened. I’m sorry that you didn’t know at the time that I loved you. 

I’m sorry that you trusted me to console you when Taako was gone. That you trusted me enough to be in my room, to have me unbraid your hair, to have me put my arm around you, to fall asleep next to me. You were in so much pain, I would have done anything that you asked of me, no matter what. But, I am still sorry that you didn’t know at the time that I loved you. You probably wouldn’t have wanted any of that from me, had you known. 

 

Just as I predicted, I’m rambling. Thinking about you too much, writing this confession -- it’s making my brain go soft. I know there must be more to apologize for. What else do I even say about my feelings or actions, about my lack of actions, about my secrets? I guess there’s nothing. It’s all already wrapped up in the one thing I wanted to tell you. That I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. 

 

I love you.

That’s all I have to say. 

 

-Barry

  
  


He would have to rewrite the letter. The paper and ink were ruined with tears. And it was so long. And so self centered; all about him and his fears and how pathetic he felt and everything that she did for  _ him,  _ and trying to justify everything that he was sorry for. How did he even think for a second that that would be the kind of letter to give her? To give to Lup? He took in as slow and deep of a breath as he could, closing his eyes, and concentrating on her. What would be bes t for her to hear? What would be the least awful for her to read? Probably the answer to that was to not write her anything at all. What was he doing why was he doing this to himself, to her…

  
  


Lup,

 

I love you.

I think I’ve always loved you. I don’t expect anything from you, I just think that you should finally know. You should know in case it changes the way you want to do things whenever we have to spend any time together professionally, or if you’d be more comfortable taking a break from working with me. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner so that you could make those kinds of decisions sooner. I’ve kept something from you and deprived you of the ability to make decisions based off of what I kept from you. I’m sure there are a lot of things that would have been different if you knew. When you look back on moments where you would have rather not told me something or been near me or hugged me if you had known, I hope that you don’t hate me. Or, do hate me. Why am I trying to make decisions for you. Feel about me however you will. All I can do is ask if you can find it in you not to hate me forever. 

  
  


Pathetic. Again. And mostly about himself. Again. He shouldn’t talk so much about his fear of her not wanting to be around him anymore; wasn’t that preemptively making her feel guilty for what she probably would want to do after reading that kind of letter? He should only apologize once, otherwise his letter would be a pity party. He shouldn’t ramble, just tell her what he had to say. Just...

  
  


Lup,

 

I love you.

I’m sorry. 

 

-Barry

  
  


_ That was a joke, right? A fun little joke on myself?  _

  
  


Lup,

 

Maybe this won’t come as a surprise, because I am a fool when you’re anywhere near me and I’ve probably given myself away a hundred times. Maybe you’ve just been being extremely kind, as usual, and have been letting me think that I’ve kept my secret. Whatever it is, I can’t hide it anymore. I’m sure you can already guess what is coming next from the tone of this letter.

 

Lup, I love you. I have for a very long time. I love you when you’re laughing, I love you when you’re rough housing with Taako, I love you when you’re blowing things up, I love you when you’re lost in your thoughts while looking at the stars, I love you when I see you being kind, when I’m lucky enough for you to be kind to me. I love you when you look sleepy, I love you when you’re so full of energy that you’re unstoppable, I love you when you’re brilliant (so, all of the time). I love every word from your mouth and every thought from your head, every letter of your writing, every step you take out into every new world like it already belongs to you. 

You are amazing and you deserve everything. You deserve everyone’s love and admiration. I guess -- how could I not love you? How could anyone not love you?  

So, I’m just another fool who loves you. I know that this will change some things. I can only hope that it won’t change your mind about being friends with me. If it does, I understand. As one of the many fools in the endless expanse of space and reality who have, or who ever will meet you, I would do anything for you. Even if that meant leaving you alone forever. 

I love you, Lup. And I can love you as a friend, as a part of my family, and that’s already more than I could ever hope to have. I’m not going to ask you for anything. I just needed you to know. 

Just one more time: I love you.

 

-Barry

 

That was probably the best he was going to do for the night. He could tell himself that he was going to sleep on it, that if it felt right in the morning, he would find a way to give it to her. But he already knew that wasn’t going to happen. It was still a weak attempt, one of dozens; he wasn’t even sure if there was a letter that could be written that would feel right, that would be good enough to give to Lup. And he was still impossibly afraid of confessing. He wasn’t sure if he would ever find the courage or the right words. But really, there was nothing else to say except “I love you. I’m sorry.” 

 

***

 

It was morning. It was early in their year. Barry sat at the edge of his bed, hesitant to even leave his room. Every time he wrote out those words, every time he acknowledged how wrong it was not to tell her, he had a harder time facing her, facing anyone. But he couldn’t hide, he couldn’t avoid everyone because that would only make it obvious that there was something wrong. And his feelings were already so close to the surface, so loud in his heart that he didn’t know if he could handle being questioned by anyone if they thought that something was wrong. If any of them approached him with any amount of concern, he would probably instantaneously cave in. He had to work at pretending that nothing was wrong until he was ready to say something. If he was ever finally ready.

 

Sometimes, Barry felt sure that she knew. That everybody already knew. It felt like it was boiling over, flooding out of him, unable to be hidden. It felt like if anyone looked at him, they would be able to see him drowning in it, see the light of his love and the fog of his pain in his eyes. How he was actually hiding it, he didn’t know. Unless, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe everyone felt bad for him.

But, no. That was old-Barry kind of thinking. He was better than that, knew better than that. There was too much trust and love in their little group for any of them to treat him like that. Old habits die hard, and he couldn’t help himself from sometimes dredging up past anxieties, but he had at least learned to chase them off. 

He knew Taako had guessed back on the beach world, and then only ever brought it up again that time when they had to... help Lup stop being in pain. But maybe since then he had forgotten in favor of his own problems, or more likely he was simply wholly disinterested. Or, maybe he even thought that it had fizzled out by then. The mere thought of that stung; the idea that he could ever stop loving Lup, that she wasn’t permanently sewn into the fabric of his being, hurt too much to think about. 

 

There was nothing that he could do about the fact that he felt fireworks in his chest each morning when he first saw her for the day. And as that burst of fire burned in him, he could feel it actually physically aching deep in him, somewhere behind his lungs. If he thought about her too much, there was a pressure against the inside of him that felt like it wanted to claw its way out, and he could feel that strange pressure rising in his throat. 

So, he had started writing. It was torturous, but it also siphoned away some of that burning. He was able to put it onto a piece of paper and tuck it away in the lie he kept telling himself of how he was definitely eventually going to give it to her. He lied and told himself that it would all be over soon, that she would know and he would find either relief from the pain or maybe more pain, but at least it would be something different than constantly burning up from the inside.

 

Lup was the person that he was meant to love. Even if it broke him, he could never love anyone else, because he was meant to love Lup, made to love Lup. He had reached a critical point where he was unable to do anything except be in love with her. And it wasn’t going to be long until something had to give. 

 

Things weren’t helped by the fact that that year, they were ending up alone for a while. Albeit with a lot of work to do, but still. 

 

The crew had no issue finding the location of the light once they made contact with representatives of the major city that they had landed near. The civilization’s advanced technology allowed them to interact with a computer in the form of a glass cube with a holographic interface, and after explaining what it was that they were looking for, the computer was able to scan the entire surface of the planet and display the exact coordinates of what they sought. 

 

The citizens were peaceful and warm and were happy to share their technology. They loved that the crew was so fascinated with and complimentary towards their society and their technological advancement, so they offered any help that they could give. 

 

Barry and Lup were especially excited to explore what the planet had to offer. They had been accepted as volunteer technicians at a lab for electronics and technological developments. It was more challenging than any work they had done together so far. They were hoping to find ways to improve on their own equipment on the ship, or to gain access to any tech that they could bring with them. So, when the ship and the rest of the crew left to follow the coordinates to the light, Lup and Barry stayed behind. They were provided private quarters for the week that the Starblaster and the rest of the crew would be gone. 

 

Lup and Barry spent a long day absorbed in testing various prototypes of microbiology equipment and ended the day completely exhausted. Despite how tired they were, they still made time to talk in the cafe on the corner before making their way back to the inner connecting building of the lab and following the directions they were given to their quarters. 

 

Barry opened the small envelope holding a translucent key-card and looked over the provided information. “Okay, so I’m in room… B-6?”

 

“Hmm, I’ve got E-19. Dang, I’m clear on the other side of the building as you.” 

 

“Oh, that’s uh - that’s too bad.” Barry thought about offering to walk Lup to her room, but it wasn’t something that was necessary. She didn’t need that, and they had already spent the entire day next to each other; it would only be for his own selfish reasons if he asked, so he shouldn’t. His room was on the way to hers though, so they walked together until they made it to his door. Lup smiled and gave Barry a small wave goodbye. 

 

“Guess I’ll get started on the trek to my room. I’ll see you in the morning!” 

 

...

 

Alone in her room, Lup wondered what Barry might be doing. For some reason, something felt different about their parting at the end of the night than it usually did on the Starblaster. Maybe it was that she was going to an empty, unfamiliar room. Maybe it was that they worked together all day with no one else from the crew around, and no possibility of any of them showing up. It felt like there was some sort of… potential, thick in the air. There was more room than usual for something to happen, and if something happened, there was no chance of anyone walking in, interrupting. There was no anxiety about anyone overhearing anything if they were to talk. Though, that was true of their camping trips and exploratory work together as well. Mostly, at least… someone still could come upon them if others from the crew went out into the world as well. It was the first time in a long while where their separation from the rest of the group was guaranteed, where they knew exactly where the rest were going and how long they would be gone for. 

She didn’t know exactly why she thought that their situation would change things. Maybe just because it was something different and she hoped that change would beget more change, stir something up. She had been feeling a sort of electric anticipation all day that ended up being maybe even more exhausting than their work had been. She still just didn’t know -- didn’t know if it was right, if it was okay, if anything was real. She wanted something to snap, something to shift in a way where she didn’t have to make the decision. Maybe that was because she didn’t want to ruin things. If things changed because of something that she had no control over, she could avoid having to live with the regret of everything getting all fucked up. Her approach with Barry was entirely incongruous with her personality; adventurous, confident, excited to try new things, trusting herself and her abilities enough to take risks. With Barry, she was cautious, quiet, worried. He meant so much to her that she felt frozen, unable to do anything that might create even the smallest chance of something going wrong. Barry couldn’t be risked, even if that meant that their relationship would always be that of good friends and nothing more. Nothing was going to happen unless it was either a sure thing, or something that she didn’t initiate. Because she would never, ever risk Barry. 

 

She flopped down on her bed and wondered again what Barry might be doing. Probably exactly what he would do any other night. She didn’t know what she was looking for, hoping for. Maybe just that because they were isolated and because they had spent every single moment of the day with each other without interruption, that he’d be thinking about her. She just wanted to creep into his head and be cozy in his thoughts, present in his dreams. 

Once again, she found herself slightly annoyed that she was so distracted. They had a huge opportunity with the work they were doing and the access they had been granted to the city’s technology. She needed to focus up, commit every detail to memory, take meticulous notes, calm her nerves and quiet her thoughts. Her stomach turned at the thought of chasing Barry out of her head. She had of course heard the term ‘lovesick’ before. She never knew that you could actually feel physically sick from being in love. 

 

***

 

In the common room of the Starblaster, Magnus was lying on the couch, his arm falling over the side onto the floor, his body language showing the impatience he was feeling with no subtlety. 

“I’m bored.” 

 

Taako sat on the opposite side as Magnus, arms crossed and foot tapping, looking just as, if not more impatient than Magnus. 

“It won’t take that much longer to get there, chill out.”

 

Merle was lying on his back on the floor near the couch and Lucretia stood patiently looking out the window. It wasn’t much longer before they heard the humming of the engine slowing and felt the gentle and familiar sensation of the ship descending. They were far away from the city where they had started, and there hadn’t been a single sign of life for the better part of their journey out into the deep wilderness where the light was supposed to have landed. Once the ship was on the ground, Davenport joined the others in the common room and addressed the crew.

 

“So, the light is supposed to be right around here, but that’s all we know. We don’t know what might have it, in what way it might be hidden or how it will be impacting the surrounding area. We’ve got to go in as carefully as possible and keep in constant contact. Magnus and Taako? Would you like to work out a game plan and then make an attempt at finding the light?”

 

Merle sat up from his place on the floor. “And what about me? I can heal them up if anything goes wrong.”

 

Taako slumped further into the couch cushion and mumbled under his breath. “ I wasn’t aware that was something that you could do.” 

 

Merle shot Taako a look. “Pfft, fine then, I’ll just stay here, We’ll see how well you get along without me and my invaluable assistance.”

 

Taako rolled his eyes. “Gods, don’t you know when I’m fucking with you by now? It’s not like I’ve been crammed in a ship with you for four decades or anything.” 

 

Davenport cleared his throat before their conversation wasted any more of their time. 

“How about Taako and Magnus do a quick perimeter check, scout out the area for any obvious signs of danger, report back here, and then the three of you can trek out a bit further together. Sound good? I just want to make sure that whoever is staying on the ship will be safe, first and foremost. And the fewer of us that stay, the more careful we need to be.” 

 

Magnus had moved from his boredom-induced sprawl on the couch and was sitting at attention. “Got it Cap’nPort!”

 

“Sounds good to me.” Taako stood up and stretched with a deep yawn. “Let’s go see what’s up with this boring ass looking place.”  

 

…

 

It wasn’t long before Merle, Taako and Magnus found the light. They saw its powerful glow emanating from the bottom of a pond, diffused into a mist of light by the water. The weirdness that manifested because of the light that time was a multitude of trails of small turtles from every direction, looking as if all nearby bodies of water had been abandoned by them in favor of the pond where the light had settled. Through the crystal clear water, they could see at the bottom of the pond that large groups of the small turtles were clustered around the light. More and more piled on until the light’s glow was almost entirely snuffed out by the sheer amount of shelled bodies gathered around it. 

 

Taako stood watching the scene, a hand on his hip. “Welp, got here just in time. So, I guess we just blast them and grab the light and get out of here?”

 

The look of distress on Magnus’s face was immediate.

“We can’t do that! They’re just little turtles.”

 

Taako already knew that Magnus would protest. “Yeah, little turtles that are obsessing over the creepy light. How else are we going to get at it? I don’t feel like getting bit by a million greedy little dudes.”

 

Magnus panicked, his brow furrowed in worry. “Well, what if we… what if… Merle? Can you think of anything?” 

 

Merle shrugged. “I don’t know. We could get a big stick and shoo them all away.”

 

Taako straightened his posture, looking impatient to leave. “Something tells me that their survival instinct is probably nonexistent around this thing and they’re not really gonna care about a stick. Alright Maggie, unless you can think of something  in the next couple of minutes, I’m gonna blast them before anything messed up happens. Who knows what a bunch of turtles might want to do if they could do anything they want.” 

 

Merle sat on the ground and twirled a piece of grass between his fingers. “I’m sure they’re not smart enough to even think up anything. Probably gonna end up like those mushroom people from way back when and just starve themselves from staring at it so long.” 

 

Magnus panicked even more, not wanting either of the proposed options for the turtles. 

“I could just dive in there and grab it?” 

 

Taako shook his head and sighed. “I mean, you do whatever you want, but I don’t really wanna watch you get eaten alive one tiny mouthful at a time if they go all aggro over protecting it.” 

 

Magnus shifted his weight from one foot to the other, nervously trying to come up with something as they watched rows of turtles pour into the small pond. After a moment, his eyes lit up.

“Oh! Taako, what if you use your mage hand to scoop a bunch of them away until you can get to the light? And then levitate it out?” 

 

Taako sighed, giving in to Magnus’s idea immediately, mostly because he didn’t want to watch him cry over turtles. They already had a net with them anyways, in case it had been needed to retrieve the light.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll just go right ahead and do alll the work.”  

 

Magnus ignored Taako’s grumpiness and smiled as he clasped his hands together excitedly. Merle remained sitting on the ground, fidgeting with the blades of grass around him, and they both watched as Taako begrudgingly started the odd task of scooping great netfuls of small turtles away from the light.

 

***

 

Barry woke up feeling groggy. He was having a hard time sleeping somewhere new -- they had done so in cycles before, but all he could think about was that the only other person around was Lup, and she was on the other side of the building from him. Not down the hall, not in a tent next to his own. What was it that felt so wrong about being further than a couple rooms away from her? He wouldn't be able to hear if anything happened. Wouldn’t be able to help. He had a strange feeling that maybe they were intentionally separated. He was paranoid; but weren’t they all? Always? What other way was there to be when you barely had the time to get used to a place before having to leave it? When you had been blindsided so many times before, just as things started to feel safe?

 

A short while after waking up, Barry met Lup in the cafe at the lower level of the building, as planned. They made sure to wake up a bit before they were expected at the lab for their technician training so that they could take their coffee together and talk before the long day of work ahead of them. They sat across from each other at a table made up of a plate of clear glass with a neon blue glow. Pressing a hand against the glass initiated a bio-scan that determined the exact needs of the body touching it and based their food orders on that information.

 

After removing her hand from the table, Lup leaned back in her chair looking disappointed.

“What if I  _ wanted  _ to order something bad for me, though?” 

 

Barry laughed. “I guess you don’t get to make those kinds of decisions anymore when a society advances to the point of every bit of daily life being optimized. There’s almost always a downside in evolving.” 

 

“Don’t be so gloomy, Bear.” Lup set her elbows on the table and leaned in to better talk to Barry. “At least I can make us junky food when we’re back on the ship.” 

 

Even though Lup cooking was a common occurrence, there was something about the promise of making something specifically for the two of them that brought a smile to Barry’s face. 

Once they had been brought their food and Barry reached for the utensils in front of him, Lup caught his hands in her sight. They looked rougher than usual, especially for being so early in the year. Before they found the city they were in, he had been working hard with Taako and Magnus. Then, once they started working in the university lab, he had been incredibly hands-on with the physical construction of tech, learning the pieces from the inside out, dedicated to finding out anything he could that might possibly improve their lives or aid in their goals. She thought about his constant efforts in learning and in their work together, and she decided to ask something that she had wondered about for a while. 

 

“Hey, so why haven’t you ever asked me to tutor you in the ways of the arcane arts, huh?” 

 

Barry was taken off-guard by the question. “Oh, uh — I guess I just didn’t want to bother you. You already help me with so much.” 

 

Lup exhaled with a small laugh. “Barry, come on. We work  _ together, _ I’m not just helping you. The stuff we do is kinda sorta for all of us.”

 

“Oh, yeah, I’m sorry Lup... I didn’t mean it like that, that was a shit way of putting it.”

 

Lup looked at him expectantly. 

“Well?”

 

“Oh uh, y-yeah, I mean- if you want to.” 

 

“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to.”

 

He sighed with relief. “Yeah. I need to remember that kinda thing.” 

 

Lup smiled and nodded. “There’s that wide open area on the other side of town, the place with all the junk? I bet we could go practice a little bit once we’re done today and be back in plenty of time to get a full night’s sleep before tomorrow.”

 

Barry smiled gratefully at Lup and was already reeling with anticipation. 

“That sounds great.” 

 

...

 

After their work in the lab for the day, Barry and Lup used the lightning fast transit system to get to the other side of the city and then made the short hike out to the as-of-yet undeveloped fields and hills. The empty expanse of land was full of debris, trash, old machinery and decaying leftovers from construction projects; all great opportunities for target practice. 

 

Barry stood at the edge of what would be their practice arena and stared out at the vast, desolate area. It was a startling contrast to the city. Lup bumped him with a shoulder and indicated for him to follow her into the center. 

“You can start with practicing what Taako has taught you already. Do some magic missile practice as a warm up? Then,” Lup lit up her hands and grinned, “we’ll get a little more hands-on.”

 

After spending a while having fun blowing up small hills of dirt and reducing piles of garbage to ash, Lup arched her eyebrows at Barry to signal that she was ready to get into the more exciting stuff. She needed to get close to show him what she wanted to teach him -- and she couldn’t help but take the opportunity to maybe get a little bit closer than she needed to. She stepped behind him and slid her hand along the back of his arm to his hand, holding it from behind, her elbow cradling his. She pressed her fingers against the back of his to show him the motions that she used to make sure that the flames stayed localized before summoning them.

 “Here, like this.” 

Barry stopped breathing for a moment and he wondered for probably the hundredth time that day how much longer he was going to be able to keep it together. 

 

...

 

“Damn Barry, you’re getting pretty formidable.” 

Lup surveyed the destruction around them from their practice. As always, she was impressed with how well Barry took to something new and how hard he applied himself. He was such a versatile and enthusiastic learner and watching him tackle new subjects had become a favorite pastime for her. Her admiration was cut short though -- they both noticed the gathering dark clouds that looked heavy with rain quickly approaching them. 

 

They began to head back, but it started pouring before they were even able to make it out of the clearing. They laughed as they ran towards the city, the hoods of their robes up, water pouring off of the hydrophobic material and splashing around them onto the already rain-soaked ground. Lup was darting around hunks of derelict machinery and, feeling giddy and playful, she ran further ahead of Barry and hid behind the rust-eaten shell of some ancient vehicle and waited to jump out at Barry as he ran past. But, before he had made it anywhere near her, she heard a thud and then a pained groan. She ran out from her hiding spot and found Barry on the ground, holding onto his leg.

 

“Barry, are you okay?”

 

Lup fell to her knees next to him, looking him over, trying to assess the situation. Barry winced as he let go of his leg so that she could look at it. 

 

“How bad is it?” Barry kept his head turned away, feeling sure that it was something he didn’t want to see.

 

Lup pulled apart the tear in the leg of his jeans and looked over the wound. 

  
  


“It’s not…  _ that  _ bad. Not great, but I think you should be okay. Gods, it is bleeding a lot, though.” 

 

“Really?” Barry’s voice was shaky; he was terrified of dying. Not because of the actual dying part, but because it was still early in the year and he didn’t want to be away from Lup and unable to experience the rest of that world together. He knew he was panicking for no reason though; no matter how bad it was, a leg wound wasn’t going to kill him. Unless it was deep enough and bled enough for him to die of exsanguination.  

“You think maybe it would be a good idea to cauterize it?” 

 

Lup’s brow knitted in worry. “It’ll stop the bleeding, but you’ll be way more prone to an infection. And that scrap of metal you ran into doesn’t necessarily look the cleanest.” 

 

Barry tried to stand up, only for the wound to start gushing blood. He winced as he sat back down, in pain and frustrated with himself. Why hadn’t he been more careful? The rain on his glasses had made it hard to see; he should have slowed down. He was going to inconvenience Lup, ruin their whole trip, and look pitiable doing it. 

 

“Oh, Barry… What if I -- I can rip up our shirts and tie it off and then wrap it, maybe that will stop the bleeding? Damn, I don’t know if that’ll be enough…” 

 

Barry exhaled carefully and tried to pull his focus away from the pain so that he could think of what to do and keep Lup from worrying too much. 

“Maybe… we can cauterize it and then see if there’s a hospital nearby?”

 

“Are you sure, Barry? That’ll hurt like hell…” 

 

Barry squirmed at the thought. It already hurt like hell, anyways. 

“Yeah, it’ll be fine… I don’t know what else to do.” Barry choked out his words through gritted teeth and occasional involuntary noises of pain. “I guess I’d rather not lose so much blood that I pass out on you. Hah, I don’t think you’d be able to carry me out of here.” 

 

Lup gave him a small smile through her distress. 

“Okay. You want me to count down or tell you it’s coming or…?”

 

“I think maybe -- just going for it is best. Anticipation would just make it -- FUCK. Oh  _ shit.” _

 

“Sorry! You said--”

 

“Gods -  _ fuck  _ \- dammit, fuck, okay, it’s fine,” Barry gasped as the pain echoed through his body. “That was the best way to do it.” Barry breathed in deeply and exhaled, his eyes closed, not wanting to look at the wound. Lup had her hand against it still, no longer aflame, just pressed against the still smoldering line on his leg, lightly caressing the area around it. She wished that she could have taken the pain away instead of adding more. But at least it gave them time to get him somewhere.  

 

…

 

After making their way back to the edge of  town, Barry limping and Lup doing her best to support him, they were able to acquire transportation to the nearest hospital. Because Barry wasn’t actively bleeding out or suffering from any other such time-sensitive ailment, they had to wait a long while before they were seen by a doctor. After having his wound cleaned and medicated and bandaged, he was given painkillers and they were sent on their way. It was late at night by that time and they were exhausted and the city transit was running on a limited schedule. Because they had been working as volunteers only looking to gather knowledge, they had very little in the way of funds. They got in contact with the overseer of their lab team to update her on the situation, and she offered to secure a room for them for the night. The nearest place to stay was the hospital itself, and the overseer conveniently had connections there. So, they ended up with a recently vacated dorm room in the housing that the hospital had for student and trainee physicians. 

 

After being provided with keys and basic sundries since they had next to nothing with them, they made their way to their lodging. In addition to being completely worn out from the overwhelming day they had, they were both already nervous because they felt pretty certain what was coming next. Opening the door to the sight of a single bed, obviously made for one person, proved them right.

Lup did her best to remain unaffected and held back a deep sigh. Of course that’s what would happen, how could she have thought it would be anything else, anything easy, uncomplicated, not torturous. In their lives? No way. And it was nothing compared to anything else they dealt with, of course. It was just… damn feelings. It was nothing. It was just closeness… physical closeness at a time where she was starting to figure out that he might not be comfortable with that… 

 

“Well. This looks cozy.” Lup tried to laugh off the situation that was already making her incredibly tense. 

 

“Hah, yeah.” Barry was glad that Lup seemed casual and not irritated by the circumstances. He knew that it wasn’t logical, but he couldn’t stop feeling like everything that had happened was his fault. His fault for getting injured, for slowing them down to the point where they had to stay the night there, even for the room being so small which was definitely not something that he could have controlled or predicted. 

 

“Sorry about all of this…”

 

“Barry. Please. You got injured. Besides, I’m the one who dragged us all the way out here.” 

 

Barry nervously looked around the room, but there wasn’t much to look at. There was a small desk in the corner, an office chair, and a tiny kitchenette that was shoved against the wall in a short, wide hallway that led to the bathroom. The room was made to just barely exist in; he felt bad for the people who actually had to live long-term in the dorms. There wasn’t even any other place where he could offer to sleep instead, unless he said the floor and he already knew Lup would absolutely not hear of that. He was strongly tempted to offer, anyways… 

 

Lup wanted to give Barry space to get comfortable. And she also wanted to take a beat to clear her head. She looked over at Barry, who looked completely lost. 

“How about you get comfy, and I’ll run nextdoor real quick and grab us some food? I think I saw a little shop across the street on our way over here.”

 

“Oh, uh yeah, sure, that sounds good. Do you want me to go, or?-”

 

“Barry. Don’t be ridiculous, you lie down. You’re probably going to be all loopy from pain-killers for a while still.” 

 

That was right. He kept forgetting.  _ That  _ was what was making him feel so dream-like and vulnerable. It was too similar to the feeling he got from just looking at Lup.

 

…

 

Barry was lying in bed and on the verge of falling asleep when Lup returned. 

 

“Got grub, Bear- oh, shit, were you asleep?”

 

Barry turned over, his eyes and voice full of sleep. “Not really, but- should probably eat before I pass out, anyways.” 

 

Lup smiled as she put down the paper bags in her arms. She set out the food and drinks that she had bought for them on the bed, like a picnic. She climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged across from him with their dinner between them. The poor lighting flickered occasionally as they ate, and it was unnervingly quietly. He wasn’t sure what was wrong… they were tired, of course. He was completely out of it and not the best conversationalist at the moment, either. Or maybe was it tension and he just couldn’t tell? Maybe it was tension and she was dreading sleeping next to him. Maybe she would opt to trance instead, sitting somewhere in the room, just so that she wouldn’t have to sleep next to him. While the idea stung, he knew that would be best, anyways. Or really, he wasn’t sure how he would feel either way -- it was an impossible situation where the only answer was to just stick out the night and act as normal as possible in the morning when they left. Just wait it out and get back to normal. It would be fine.  

 

Lup didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t get away from thinking about the narrow bed, how sleepy and frazzled she was, how much she wanted comfort, how much she wanted to comfort Barry after everything that had just happened to him. It was silent between them, silent for too long, because she couldn’t trust herself to open her mouth without mentioning something about their situation and potentially making things weird. 

_ I’ve known this man for over forty years, dammit. I’ve been close to him before, we consider each other family, I wouldn’t have this issue if it was with anyone else so why can’t I calm down when it’s him, it’s fine, it should be fine, we’re going to be asleep anyways, unconscious the entire time, we both need to rest and that’s all this is about, there’s nothing more to it, nothing, it’s fine, just don’t mention it don’t talk about it don’t point it out don’t show that you’re nervous… _

 

Lup gathered herself as she cleared everything off of the bed. She smiled calmly, normally. 

“Sorry for being so quiet, Bear. Nerves are shot from the long day; I’m sure that goes double for you.”

 

“Yeah, definitely. Nothin’ to apologize for.” Barry’s voice slowed down more and more and he felt like his mouth was full of cotton. Being tired and anxious and coming off of being in a ton of pain, and then being affected by painkillers on top of all of that had rendered him basically useless. He felt too uninhibited to trust himself to talk any more than absolutely necessary. He forced the heavy, nearly numb corners of his mouth into a smile, looking over at Lup with half-lidded eyes. 

“Think I’m gonna get to sleep. Uh-” Barry scooted as far as he was able to the opposite side of the bed. “Feel free to jab me in the ribs or somethin’ if I snore or take up too much space, or anythin’ like that.” 

 

Lup just nodded. She wanted to say that he didn’t have to worry, that he could make himself comfortable, that he didn’t have to cram himself over to one side of the bed. But, she didn’t trust herself to not accidentally say it like an invitation or a request or suggestion. She switched off the light and made her way under the covers, only barely not lying directly against him even with them both keeping themselves at opposite sides. 

 

…

 

As tired as he was, he couldn’t sleep. His mind was moving slowly, but his heart was acting as a separate entity and was racing in response to Lup being near. But after a bit, his nervous energy started to wind down and he felt himself falling into a deep sense of calm. They were next to each other. They were happy and safe. He found himself staring at the back of Lup’s head, at her hair, at the silhouette of her form under the blanket as she lay on her side. He heard her breathing and it hypnotized him. He could feel his face burning, but more than that, he could actually physically feel how full his heart was from being near her. He relaxed into a dazed state and his eyelids began to get heavy. He didn’t want to fall asleep, though. He wanted to lie there and think about her a little bit more, think about that moment for a little longer, live in it for a little longer. But his deep breaths, heavy with his longing for her, fell into sync with the sound of her own rhythmic breathing, and it wasn’t long before he fell asleep.

 

…

 

Barry woke up to the feeling of Lup shifting in bed, and he realized with disappointment how soon he had gone to sleep. But… it was better that way. With his abruptly woken mind and more lucidity than he had been able to hold onto before he fell asleep, he realized that staring at her wistfully and trying to force himself to stay awake in order to do so longer was probably the creepiest thing he could do. He realized with horror that once again, they were in a situation that she probably wouldn’t be comfortable with if she knew his feelings. Gods, if she knew how much time he had spent just earlier that year trying to write her a love letter, how would she feel about him lying next to her? 

It was different from the time years before when he warmed her in his tent. When that happened, she was wrapped in a million blankets, she was aware that she was close to him, he had an arm around her already so there wasn’t any fear of ending up too close, and she had given up her own space and entered his intentionally -- it wasn’t thrust upon her through a shitty situation like him getting injured. It happened decades before, but he remembered that night with perfect clarity. And the moment he was in just then… it was very different. And he felt awful. Just one more thing to apologize for in the letters that he would undoubtedly continue to write. 

He was already as far as he could be from her, but the feeling of guilt that washed over him had him scooting away a bit more and drawing his arms towards himself, trying to take up as little room as possible, just in case she shifted towards him in her sleep. That thought made him panic even more -- what if she fell asleep and got closer to him, and he fell asleep and ended up closer to her or with a hand or an arm near her... what if she woke up to see him too close,  _ what if she woke up and he was so close that it looked intentional.  _

He took a deep breath and calmed himself. She would notice if he didn’t sleep all night. And he already wasn’t feeling great. He wouldn’t want to slow her down on the way back on top of everything else. He needed to get his heart to stop racing and his mind to stop spinning. He needed to get to sleep. 

 

...

 

Lup was having the hardest time falling asleep. How badly she wanted to accidentally get any closer to him at all was keeping her up. But because she was so wide awake, for them to accidentally drift together she would have to pretend to be asleep. And that would be a pretty shady thing to do. She heard a soft sigh from Barry, just the slightest hint of his voice in his breathy, sleepy involuntary little noises. He was asleep. And she needed to fall asleep. And maybe… maybe they would accidentally be closer when she woke up. And it wouldn’t be her fault, it wouldn’t be something she had done on purpose. But, was her hoping that would happen already in itself damning? Maybe her wanting that would creep into her subconscious and she would end up half awake, getting closer to him, reaching for him. She forced her eyes shut and nestled into her pillow and gathered her side of the blankets around her. She needed to focus on going to sleep. If she cleared her mind and kept her eyes closed, it would have to happen, eventually. And then she wouldn’t be able to hear his soft noises, wouldn’t be able to think about him, wouldn’t feel electric all over from how close he was to her, wouldn’t feel tormented. 

 

...

 

For the small while that he was able to sleep, Barry had short bursts of dreams. Several of them made it seem like he had woken up to find that she was holding onto him. Some were where they were sleeping in the same bed because they did every night, of course, because they loved each other, it was just a fact. 

 

He had a dream where he was pleading, begging. She was standing away from him, keeping a distance, stiff, apprehensive about getting any closer to him, about talking to him. She was barely even looking at him. She knew, she knew. And he was begging and making it worse, making it more obvious that he was not only in love with her, but  _ too  _ in love with her. The desperation he felt filled him entirely and he had no control over his words or emotions. He told her that he couldn’t let her go, that she didn’t understand, he couldn’t let her go and he couldn’t even get away from her; it felt like he was tangled in her hair. It was going against everything he wanted for her, and he knew that even as he continued to beg. He was so insistent, so sorry for himself -- and she was obviously disturbed. She wanted to leave the situation, and he was making sure that she knew that he was going to be broken and going to stay broken when she did. 

 

He woke up again, but that time it was to the sound of a sleepy sigh and a soft puff of breath on his lips. His eyes shot open and his immediate impulse was to scramble away, to spring from the precarious position he was in. But he knew waking her up by him almost falling out of the bed wouldn’t help anything. So, he would move away slowly and hope that she wouldn’t wake up to find that they were sleeping face to face. 

But, as he started the process of slowly repositioning, she stirred and her hand that was settled on her pillow moved upwards, across the side of his face, his stubble, past his ear, until her wrist was hanging limply off of his neck. He was unable to keep himself from shaking and he felt his breath stop abruptly. He knew that she was fond of holding onto pillows when she was sleepy; he had seen her on the couch with her arms wrapped around a pillow tons of times. That’s all it was. Just her habit of holding onto something while she slept kicking in. 

What was he supposed to do? Pretend to go back to sleep and hope that she would eventually turn over?

Before he could make any decisions, she stirred and her sleepy breathing stopped for a moment as she made a little “mmf” sound and nuzzled forward, further into him, rubbing her nose against his. Trying to hold back the flood of adrenaline overtaking him, he tried to think of something,  _ anything  _ that he could do. Her wrist was hooked around his neck, her face was  _ on  _ his; if he moved right then it would almost definitely wake her up and the first thing her eyes would process would be that he was  _ ridiculously  _ close to her. What if it looked to her like he was awake and trying to kiss her in her sleep. The idea of taking advantage of a situation like that, of disrespecting Lup; it sickened him. Even if that wasn’t what he was doing, if she thought that about him, he would die on the spot. He tilted his head slightly so that his lips were at least further away from hers. He should just try to sleep? Or should he see how quickly he could roll over and if he could do it fast enough for her not to see where he had just been. She started to mumble in her sleep, and as cute as it was, he couldn’t appreciate it with the situation he was in. And it terrified him that it meant she might be waking up. He kept his eyes closed while he tried to think about what to do, pretending to be asleep in the meantime. 

 

...

 

Lup woke up and was startled by how close she was to Barry. So close. Too close. Gods, if he woke up… 

If he woke up, he would definitely be flustered and uncomfortable. But… what if he woke up and what if it was okay — what if he maybe even wanted to kiss her? And they just did. Would it be… would it be bad if she just stayed like that for a bit? She could keep her eyes closed and then maybe he would wake up in a moment and she could open her eyes, and they would both be awake and close and looking at each other, and maybe something would happen, maybe something would take over and it would be out of her hands. He might just get embarrassed and feel bad and move away. Or, maybe, she hoped… maybe he would want to be that close to her. But then, she noticed his body language. How scooted away the rest of him was, his arms close to himself; it was obviously a huge mistake that their faces ended up so close. They just coincidentally both rolled over towards each other at some point, and the bed was too small for them  _ not  _ to be that close unless they were at the very edges. Which he was. She had ended up in his space. He looked like he went to sleep tense, like he wasn’t even comfortable. The observation struck her in a vulnerable spot, and she had to do her best to not let it sadden her. There had been those couple of times where he had put his arms around her for one reason or another. Maybe he was positioned the way he was because he really didn’t want that to happen again. Maybe, as she had wondered before, he did those things only because she needed them at the time, and he wasn’t actually happy with that level of physical closeness. 

As soon as she started to feel down, she thought about the things Taako had pointed out. How Barry looked at her, how Barry acted differently depending on whether or not she was in the room, things that Barry did for her, the way that he appreciated the things she did for him. She didn’t know which parts to pay more attention to, to give more value, more weight. She could just see the things that she wanted to see, or… she could see the fact that they were good friends, that he was different around her because  _ they _ were different together, but that it didn’t mean something deeper, not as deep as she wanted, because  _ look at how he was.  _ Trying to be far away from her. She pulled back so that her forehead and nose weren’t pressed against his, then gently withdrew her hand that had somehow ended up flopped over his neck, and tried not to feel disappointed. 

 

…

 

Before Barry could think of an escape plan, he heard Lup sigh deeply and then felt her roll over, away from him, removing her hand from around his neck. It didn’t sound like she had completely woken up. It definitely didn’t sound like she was startled by their positioning. He was okay, everything was okay, he could try to get his heart to stop racing, try to actually get to sleep. 

 

...

 

“Morning, Barry.” Lup was sitting up in bed, stretching when Barry opened his eyes. 

 

She let her arms drop and she looked down at him and he was frozen. They smiled at each other and his heart started beating again. There was a small ray of light coming through the tiny open space of the curtains from the single window in the room and it looked like there was a fire behind her. Her eyes were full of sleep and her smile was relaxed and her clothes were rumpled and her hair was frizzy in the spots where it was coming undone from her braids and he loved her. She pushed the covers aside and he wanted to tell her that he loved her. He struggled to sit up, feeling shaky from wanting to tell her, from the patterned mini adrenaline rushes from wanting to tell her over and over. She noticed how he was weakly rising from bed and asked him if he was okay, if he was still feeling something from the painkillers. And then he remembered how fuzzy his brain had been the night before and maybe that’s why he was having such ridiculous thoughts. Or maybe he couldn’t even notice the effect the drugs had on him because of her, because he felt just as ridiculous as he ever did. 

 

…

 

Barry and Lup walked to the transit center and traveled back to the lab where they checked in with everyone. A couple days later, the crew was back with the light. 

 

They reduced their time at the tech lab in favor of experimenting with the light. As the year wound down, they stopped going into the city entirely -- they were either with the light, the rest of the crew, or they were exhausted and sleeping. 

  
  


Was he ever going to be able to  _ really  _ sleep again? Without her there keeping him company in the liminal space of dreaming, without sharing that time of lost consciousness, how could he ever feel warm and happy and complete? He felt the heaviness of his incompleteness as he lay in bed without her. He just wanted to hold her small hands, press his forehead against hers, and fall asleep to the rhythm of her breathing. 

  
  


Lup told herself more than once that she was going to go and knock on Barry’s door and ask to sleep next to him like they had earlier in the year. Except not at all like that, but actually closer, intentional. But then, she would remember how uncomfortable he looked and how he was almost falling off of the bed because of how close she had inched towards him. The beds in their rooms on the ship were larger than the one at the hospital was, but she wanted to sleep near him and to not use all of that space, to be curled up against Barry so close that she felt surrounded by him. 

 

Why couldn’t she sleep next to him. What was so wrong about that. Why couldn’t she just go ask. It didn’t even have to mean anything. She just wanted to… 

It was strange having spent part of the year with him as sort of double-coworkers. It wasn’t the first time that they had both worked at the same place on a planet, but it was definitely the most professional environment they had been in, and one that they took very seriously considering the subject matter. There was a sort of reinforced feeling that year of needing to be professional with him. But she had known him for so long, in so many different ways, that it shouldn’t have mattered. Why couldn’t she, why couldn’t she, it didn’t even have to mean anything.  _ Barry, can I sleep in your bed with you, just because I want to…  _ to what? What could she say… I miss you? I want to be close to you? I enjoy being close to you? I just -- really, really want to sleep next to you, no good reason? I want to sleep next to you because I miss you and I want to be close to you, but you know, just as a friend, don’t even worry about it… _ Barry, do you even like being close to me? You always seem so uncomfortable, stiff, do you like being near me? Anyone ? how many times have I put you in a position where you did something that you didn’t want to…  _

 

Lup laid in bed, flat on her back, looking up at the stars in her room. What if she told him that she was sick of the constellations on her own ceiling and she wanted to look at his? Was that a good reason? Her eyes started to close and her thoughts became wavy and unstable. How would it go if she went to Barry and asked him something like that? What could she say that would make him understand...

_ Please let me in, please let me lie next to you. _

_ I want to be under the same stars as you, just for tonight.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	46. Through Hilly Lands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Forty Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though I am old with wandering
> 
> Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
> 
> I will find out where she has gone,
> 
> And kiss her lips and take her hands;
> 
> And walk among long dappled grass,
> 
> And pluck till time and times are done,
> 
> The silver apples of the moon,
> 
> The golden apples of the sun.
> 
> -Yeats

 

He didn’t know how long he had been walking without direction, without purpose, without thought. It was hard to think out there; maybe even impossible. But, he would find her eventually. If he simply went to every place that existed, he would have to find her in one of those places. 

 

He forgot for a moment that their time there was limited and that he was going to see her again no matter what. But that feeling was too hard to hold on to, and he didn’t care. He needed to see her  _ that  _ minute. And if not that minute, then the next. And if he didn’t find her in the next one either, then the one after that. And on and on until he saw her. There was no stopping; that was the only thing that he knew for sure. Because the aching in his knees, in his lungs, the pounding in his head, the burning of his eyes… there was no pain that could rival the agony of not seeing Lup. His legs would just have to carry him despite the exhaustion and pain. Even if his body gave up, he knew that pure force of will would keep him standing, keep him walking. He could wither away entirely, be reduced to a skeleton… even then, he wouldn’t stop looking for her.  

 

***

 

A week before they got lost, Barry was sitting at the desk in his room, nervously scratching his thumbnail against the pencil in his hand. They were planning on leaving soon, prepared to hike and camp for several days, and they were trying something different. They had the light, and they were going to take it with them. Davenport was of course nervous about it, but they ultimately agreed that it was at least something new to try and was worth a shot. They wanted to see if maybe there were any reactions out in the field that were worth looking into, or whether there were certain things that were especially attracted to it above others, and how those attractions might manifest. They knew that it was a dangerous trip, but it was nearing the end of the year and they had suffered no casualties. Even Merle was still with them. Lup and Barry felt fairly safe, especially with each other, as far as not falling into a bad state because of the light. But, they didn’t know what else there was out there that might come after it, or what any of those things might do to get it.  

 

And so, Barry sat at his desk, scratching splintered indentations into his pencil because he knew something had to happen already. Things were getting to a point where he was going to screw up; he was going to blurt it out or say something revealing while he was mesmerized by her. Or, she was going to end up seeing the mounting pain in his eyes and he wouldn’t be able to look away. He might end up unable to hide his face turning red under the guise of just being nervous. And… he didn’t want it to come out because of a stupid accident. He didn’t want it to be some embarrassing slip of the tongue. That could  _ not  _ be how it happened. So, he was going to try writing again. And again. Until he wrote something at least passable. And he would give it to her on their trip. Fuck -- but that would make it  _ so  _ unpleasant for the rest of their time in the field. Maybe on the way back? But… then it would be retroactively upsetting if she knew that he had been holding onto a note in his pocket the entire time they were working. Maybe he would just see if there was a moment that felt right… they could always cut the trip short and he could walk some distance behind her, give her space. She would finally not have to slow down because of him anymore, at least. 

Or maybe… maybe he should just wait for another time. Put it off for a bit longer. Maybe another opportunity would present itself. Or just -- just not. He had been repeatedly talking himself in and out of doing it for the better part of the past two years. He just shouldn’t, right? But then what if he ended up having to write that letter later on, anyways -- and would then have to say that it had been fifty years of him keeping a secret from her? A hundred? More? It was only going to sound worse and worse the longer he waited.

He wished his mother could have met her. The thought came at him out of nowhere, and it was… an intense thought. Probably too much. But it happened, and he was on that path in his head already. All he could think about was how kind and good they both were, and how much they would have liked each other.

 

He thumbed through his notebook, eyeing lines from different notes that  _ might  _ be worth using, things that could potentially be pieced together to make something that worked.

 

_ \- I feel like I am defined by my love for you, Lup. At my desk writing this confession, I can feel how real this is, I can feel the heaviness of it. I realize that all I can do is sit here and be in love with you.  _

 

_ -You are inspiration incarnate, you are a storm of healing rain, you are timeless meadows with flowers that never die. I see you when I look out into space, I feel you in my dying thoughts, those last few bright flashes before everything goes dark. You’re always in my dreams, and you’re always an all-consuming fire of kind and quiet love, raging brightly within the core of collapsing stars, stars that are dying because even celestial bodies cannot hold everything that makes up… you. Just you, Lup. There is no way to accurately capture the miracle of your existence in words. But, I still want to try.  _

 

_ -I want you to know that I see you, as much as I am humanly capable of. I see everything that you are and the sight burns me, creates a fever in my brain the way that looking at anything unknowable would. The things that I could offer you, though… they’re so small. But I want to lay it all at your feet, anyways. Everything that I could possibly find within me to give, I want you to have. You don’t know it, but you already have my heart. And even though finding something to give you that would be anywhere near the sort of wonderful things that you deserve would be a Sisyphean task that would take the rest of my eternal life, it’s the only thing that I want to do.  _

  
  


The more he wrote, the more desperately poetic he became. The things that he thought were necessary to write kept swelling and growing, rather than boiling down to the essentials like he wanted. She didn’t deserve to be burdened with every single one of his thoughts and every single one of his feelings for her. She just needed to know. So that he could stop lying to her by omission.

***

At the beginning of that year, a full eleven months before they got lost, Barry had done his best to keep himself from writing any more letters. It wasn’t really helping him to get things off of his chest anymore; it had only made things more torturous, and it gave him something to constantly worry about. Every time he looked at Lup, he could feel an immense guilt rising in him. He thought about what he had hidden away in his room, about the long list of things she didn’t know, things that he was keeping from her and how unfair it was for him to be doing that. And then there was the constant stress from the fear of being found out. It was the first time there had ever been physical evidence, the first time that he had ever manifested his feelings in a way that could be discovered. There was no reason for anyone to ever go into his room and rifle through his drawers and come across the notebook that was filled with notes that weren’t good enough to give to Lup. But he was afraid anyways, afraid that somehow that situation would come up and his notes would be found. He would die from embarrassment; he would never be able to look at any of them in the face ever again. So, at the end of the prior year, he destroyed the pages and then took the extra precaution of ditching the whole thing into a trash can in the city the day before the Hunger would be there -- leaving it behind somewhere they would never return to was the only way to make absolutely sure that there was no evidence left, nothing that could be read and no mysterious remains of a notebook that could be found and asked about. After that, he told himself to stop, to restrain himself from writing any more letters that he would never give her. And he did stop. For a while.

In the lab, Barry and Lup had several projects going on at once, checking samples from every plant they could find, every surface of stone or wood that they could chip off, any substrate they could loosen and pack into a tube. So much of their standard work for the beginning of their years had become processes that they could do with their eyes closed. 

Barry had mounted a slide with a thin square of cuticle and outer epidermis scraped from the leaf of a fruiting bush they had found. He examined it under the microscope for a long and interrupted while, occasionally adjusting the focus and magnification. He peered into the microscope and never took his eyes off of his specimen even as he wrote his observations into the notebook set next to him. It was something that he often did, and his writing didn’t come out as perfectly blocky and neat as it did when he wrote normally. Lup loved it. She loved how he couldn’t look away once he was interested in something; not until he figured it out, not until he had logged every detail and recorded every observation. She turned back to her own work and her own notes on the substrate sample that she was carefully separating in order to study its every component. After a long, quiet while of them both being absorbed in their work, Barry finally pulled away from the microscope and involuntarily sharply inhaled through his teeth, feeling a sudden pain. Lup looked up and saw him rubbing at his neck, his face expressing his discomfort. 

 

“Aw no, hurt your neck?”

 

Barry shook his head, even as he kept rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s fine, just was leaning over the microscope at a weird angle for too long.” 

 

“I can fix that for you, if that’s okay?” 

 

Barry hesitated to answer; it was pretty distracting and didn’t feel great… on top of that, he knew that it would only disappoint her if he just waved off the help that she offered. And of course he always appreciated her closeness, her kindness… but there was the part of him, as always, that he knew was going to feel so much more, too much, about her nearness, her kindness, her concern, her help. Her her her. But, he still had to pretend. He hadn’t worked up the courage to say anything yet, so he still had to pretend that things were normal. 

 

“Uh, y-yeah, that’s okay. Thank you.”

 

She smiled at him as she got up out of her chair and moved to stand behind him, cracking her knuckles. “Don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty damn good at this.”

 

As Lup warmed her hands and massaged circles into the muscles along his neck and dug into his shoulders, Barry let out an involuntary sigh of relief. He was glad that Lup was standing behind him so that she couldn’t see how thoroughly crimson his face had turned. 

 

Lup was trying to take Taako’s advice and had started to look for good things, for positive signs. Barry seemed comfortable, relaxed. He was letting her help him, touch him, and he wasn’t tensing up or keeping a distance. And gods, his shoulders were — as she had already observed many times, he was stronger than he gave himself credit for. 

 

She was struck by the memory of when she trimmed his hair so many years before; another time where they were in the lab and she noticed that he suddenly looked uncomfortable. And she remembered how that time in order to fix his problem, she took him to her room and sat him down at the vanity. During the act of cutting his hair, she felt her emotions rise as she thought about the year before that one, where Barry had comforted her after Taako’s death. She was overcome with gratitude for him having been there for her when her brother was gone, and she let herself go limp and slid her arms over his shoulders and wrapped him up and lightly hugged him from behind and told him how much she appreciated him. 

In the many years that had passed since then, there had only been more and more reasons to appreciate him. To feel safe with him, cared for. All she wanted to do in that moment while massaging his neck was to pause and to slide her arms over his shoulders and hug him from behind and tell him how much she loved him. 

***

It was the day that they left for their trip with the light in tow. Taako worried, but reminded himself over and over that it was only a week, it would be fine, and he didn’t want to stress Lup out by being visibly upset over her leaving. She already knew how he felt, anyways. And if he could keep cool about it, maybe she wouldn’t feel so bad that it distracted her. But, he couldn’t help but think… if they didn’t make it back before the Hunger came, would having the light with them make something different happen? What if being consumed by the Hunger along with the light took them away forever? Taako wasn’t as happy with change and experimentation and risk as Lup was. But he wasn’t going to stop her. He did secretly hope that maybe something would crop up that would keep them from going, though. 

**...**

Both wearing their robes to keep warm in the chilly evening air, a light wind catching the fabric of their robes, Barry and Lup moved like red waves of water down the winding trail surrounded by tall thin trees. The leaves on the branches and on the ground were all colored in shades of burning oranges and reds. There was no brush on the ground, just flat, leaf-covered open spaces between the spindly trees that were thin enough that they could see far into the distance. The sunset caught the world on fire with its brilliant deep red against the bright white sky. It was the same woods where they had found the light earlier in the year, and they figured, or at least hoped, that they would have noticed by then if something had changed for the worst because of the light’s presence. But, it seemed like they had scooped it up before it had caused any changes in the world around it. 

 

They were mostly quiet as they set up camp that night. There was something about the woods there that made it feel unsafe to talk. They both felt it and didn’t have to communicate anything. They looked at each other from either side of their campfire with lost expressions; not bashfully quickly darting their gaze away from the other, but just looking, tired, empty. Beside the fire was set a bowlful of berries that they had tested and found safe earlier in the year -- they came across one of the bushes that grew them while they were on the trail that day, and decided to take a moment to grab some up, knowing that it was always a good idea to pad their food supplies whenever presented with the opportunity. But, as they shared some of them that night, they noticed that they tasted different than they had before. They were definitely the same ones, growing from the same type of bush with the same type of leaves, all of the same features. Unless there was a perfect copycat of those bushes, they should have been the same fruits that they had already tested. They chalked it up to the fact that it was in a different area and had grown in different soil and under different conditions. Maybe they weren’t ripe enough, maybe they were overly ripe. It was fine it was fine it was fine. 

 

That night, Barry woke up to the sound of rustling outside of his tent. He propped himself up on an elbow, alert, unmoving, waiting to see if he heard anymore sounds. The door to his tent started to unzip, and his first thought was that it was Lup- but why wouldn’t she let him know first? Why didn’t she say anything? Unless there was a reason to be quiet; the thought made his heart race. There was definitely something wrong. As the flap of the tent entrance opened, almost entirely unzipped, he saw nothing. Nothing, not even a shadow as he looked at the open mouth of his tent, but somehow it continued to unzip itself. Barry scrambled backwards, sitting up fully, readying himself to do… anything. Again, there was silence. And then rustling next to him, by the box that housed the light. In one swift motion, the cloth bag around the box was ripped away, the box lid was pried open, and the light lifted out of the box and darted out of his open tent. He snagged his robe from the side of his sleeping bag as he dashed out after it. He threw it over his shoulders and held it around himself, not taking the time to fully put it on as he ran as fast as he could out into the cold night. 

 

…

 

Lup woke up early, shivering from the cold. She pulled her sleeping bag up to her chin and tried to nestle further into the slight warmth of her bedding, but it wasn’t enough. Moving around would probably be better at getting her warmed up. She didn’t feel tired anyways. Maybe Barry would wake up early, too. She donned her robe and left her tent and saw that Barry’s was open. At first her heart skipped, seeing that he must be awake. But then she realized that it was odd -- if he had stepped out of his tent, he would have closed it behind himself, not left it hanging open. Especially if he wasn’t right around the tent, which he wasn’t. There was no sign of him anywhere. She peeked into his tent, thinking that maybe she just couldn’t see him from her angle and maybe he was leaned over his things, getting ready to leave the tent. But he wasn’t there. His robe was gone. And the box that held the light was open. And when she crawled in and looked inside of the box, she saw that the light was gone, too. Barry, his robe, the light. All gone. But nothing else. She stood outside of his tent, staring out into the hazel wood, heavy with early morning mist and brightly lit with the barely rising sun. She refused  to believe that he had succumbed to the light. Not after all of their work with it, everything they had done to resist it, to ignore its whispers. But that was what it looked like. It looked like he had fallen under its spell and whisked it away, leaving her behind. With the hood of her robe over her head and her hands pulled inside, close to her to stay warm, her sleeves empty and waving in the slight wind, she stood over her own open tent. Maybe she would just leave everything there. Maybe he was nearby, and if he wasn’t, then she would come back and pack things up before venturing further out. But for the time being, she wanted to not be weighed down. She needed to be swift, to quickly circle around the area and see if she could find any trace of her Barry before he went too far. 

 

…

 

She felt like she had been wandering for days, but the sun was only just beginning to set. She swore that its trip across the sky was slower than usual. But maybe time just passed by differently without Barry. She had long lost track of their campsite. It wasn’t like her to lose her sense of direction. It felt like the woods were shifting, time was wrong, trees and light changed, shadows switched directions. She was hopelessly lost. But it was hard to feel worried about any of that. All she could feel was wanting to find Barry. 

 

The sun was setting. As she wound her way between the thin trees, she noticed that the shadows were falling on the ground pointing towards the sun, towards the source of light. She looked around, only seeing trees and more trees, repeating forever in a pattern that was hard to discern, with everything looking so much the same, extending on forever in every direction. It was impossible to know which way to go or where she had already gone. Her head felt foggy; she knew she could be doing something to keep track of where she had been, that she should be doing anything at all. But, she just wanted to sit down with her back against a tree and think for a while. The sun seemed stuck at sundown for an unusual amount of time -- maybe they were in the middle of a change in the seasons. She was getting tired. She watched the long shadows of the trees as she slumped against one, and that was when she noticed… she only saw the shadows of the trees. Her own shadow wasn’t anywhere. She quickly looked at her hands even though she already knew that she could see herself. Looked them over, everything seemed normal. She sighed, exasperated, and sat there for a while. She could give herself a little bit of time, time to think and look at the burning orange leaves spread out all around her. Then she would do something about her situation. 

  
  


_ I think… I think maybe he loves me. I just don’t know, though. We’ve all been together so long, everyone is so comfortable, and we all love each other and of course it would feel like that, it would feel like he loves me, because in that way, he does. He loves me like everyone else loves each other, but maybe he loves me more than that. I just don’t know how to know for sure. I can’t do anything if I don’t know for sure. I'm not even sure if I should do anything even if I did. What… what would change? Does it need to change? _

 

She knew that so many things could change, but what if it wasn’t all good? __

 

_ But what if we slept in the same bed every night? _

 

But she was worried that maybe it would make their work more difficult. What if things became strained between them, or what if they were distracted by each other to the point that they made another mistake, a mistake that they couldn’t afford to.

 

_ But what if we got to… what if… _

 

Lup’s heart raced just from thinking about it, just from  _ almost  _ thinking about it, even. She felt like she was shaking with the force of the rush that swept through her body, the warmth on her cheeks, the fires lighting in her brain. 

 

_ His lips are... _

_ When he talks, I can’t stop looking at them. He talks so softly, he smiles at me so… sincere, loving. Maybe he loves me?  _

 

_ The way that smile has made me feel over the years, over so many years. I don’t think he smiles at everyone like that. He is sincere and warm and loyal to everyone… but does he smile like that? I should watch closer sometime. And if he smiles differently for me, what does that mean what does that mean, and if it means that he loves me, what then?  _

  
  


*******

 

It was the day after Lup and Barry left and Davenport couldn’t reach them and hadn’t heard from them since the night before. It was possible that there was some sort of interference, a magical barrier, or any number of reasons aside from a worst-case scenario. But it didn’t bode well, and Taako was unable to do anything except sit around and feel uneasy. It was less than a week. Less than a week, he told himself. Over and over and over and over. Magnus knew what Taako was thinking and he tried to distract him. It worked a little bit, it worked less, it didn’t work at all. He slept a few hours the first night, barely at all the next night, he didn’t sleep the third night. He struggled to wait, struggled to stay on board the ship, struggled to trust her. But what if it was something like what had happened a few years before. What if she was alone? Even if he couldn’t actually help, he could at least make sure that she wasn’t alone. 

It wasn’t a sure thing that something was wrong. There were multiple reasonable explanations for their stones not to be working. It was fine it was fine it was fine. 

 

*******

 

As Barry walked, he thought about Lup. As he often did. As he mostly did. It was all he could do while he searched for her. He was searching for her, right?… that was what was happening? She was lost, and he was searching for her and it seemed like it had been that way for forever. 

 

He loved her. He loved her so much.

 

He had some sort of… different realization dawning on him. Of course he loved her. He had for such a long time. He pined over her, agonized over her at some points, longed for her presence, lost his voice when she smiled, forgot what words were when she was closer than normal to him. He missed her when she was gone, had felt despair beyond what he thought was emotionally possible when he couldn’t save her from pain, physical and emotional. He had experienced every emotion there was to experience and felt every kind of love there was in existence over her. And as complicated and intangible and bigger than the universe all of those things were, the things that he wanted were so simple. 

To hold her in his arms. To make her feel safe. Make her feel loved. To kiss her forehead. To not have to say goodnight. To not wonder whether or not it sounded like too much to say ‘I missed you’ even if she was gone only for a single day. To not have to wonder at all. 

 

And the realization he was having was how all of those things were so  _ good.  _ They were so good and so simple; why couldn’t they be real? Would she really not want any of that? He felt so much want from her -- in his more hopeful moments he had been wondering if she might actually feel something, too. She  _ wanted  _ to be around him, she  _ wanted  _ to talk to him late in the night, she  _ wanted  _ to see him in the morning. Wanted to waste time talking about nothing over cups of coffee, to explore world after world with him. He knew that none of that came from a place of obligation, it wasn’t just her being a nice person, it wasn’t even because of their close quarters and limited options. He felt and knew that she genuinely wanted to be around him, seemed to prefer his company over others, even. She frequently referred to him as her best friend, as part of her family. They were already so close that it just felt like it would be  _ right  _ to be even closer. 

 

Everything they did felt natural, normal. Talking over coffee, watching sunsets and stars, watching worlds and time go by, together. Like the kinds of dates that people would have gone on in their home world. There was nothing but comfort in it. He frequently forgot about the heaviness of their lives and the weight of their burdens when he was walking next to her.

 

There couldn’t be anything wrong with it, there just couldn’t be. It felt right, it felt like it should exist. But how… what could he do, what could he say? 

 

That was when doubt started to slink away from Barry, and a sense of sureness and determination settled in. He was going to think of something, some way to tell her, better than the dozens of letters he had tried to write. Something perfect. He would take his time with it -- he already had done plenty of that, anyways, even though a large part of him felt like it couldn’t possibly wait any longer. But as he thought it over, the feeling that became even stronger was the warmth, the excitement, the sweet suspense from the thought of finding the perfect way to convey his feelings. He needed her to know  _ exactly  _ how he felt. There could be no margin of error, no shadow of doubt. 

  
  


He continued his never ending walk, searching for her. He was after the light, at one point, forever ago when he first left. But that couple of minutes chasing after the light gave way to years of searching for Lup. His robe hung in tatters off of his shoulders, his hair was grown out, wild and messy. And everything hurt. 

Forest gave way to hills gave way to meadows of dry gold grasses, puffs of white fluff carrying their seeds everywhere in the wind, airborne and searching for a place to land. And he took another step. Sharp pain shot from the sole of his foot and into his knee and he took another step. His toes felt numb and his ankle felt stiff and painful and he took another step. 

All of the roads were hard-packed dirt with no spring in them, dotted with painful rocks. Every time he came to a hill, it would be dusk out and hard to tell where the hill ended or where it led to. It all always inevitably led back to the forest, where it was sundown and the trails there were never the same. If he doubled back, there would be a tree growing in the middle of the path that wasn’t there before. And in the meadows it was always morning, unbearably bright with the sun reflecting off of shining golden grass. Had it ever been night? Did night happen? Had he been searching only a single day, or was it the way that it felt like it was, like decades of wandering? If he were ever able to find their campsite again, would it be night there? Would she still be in her tent, sleeping; would it have been like he had never left? Why did he leave, again? He couldn’t remember, he could only feel that it was the worst decision he had ever made. To go anywhere without her. What point could there ever be to doing something like that. 

 

***

 

They still hadn’t heard anything. There was only a couple of days left, but Taako wasn’t able to sit and do nothing about it anymore. He left early in the morning and hiked out to the woods where Lup and Barry had gone and never come back from. In the blinding rays of the swiftly rising sun, he arrived at the border of the forest and stared in confusion, frustration, and too much anger to be in awe. There was a swirling nacreous film in the air surrounding the forest, beginning just outside of the edge of where the first tree stood. The streams of pearlescent colors moved slowly across the surface of the film and ever few seconds would shift rapidly, almost as if the colors were alive and dodging away from some danger that appeared before slowing, and moving more like the liquid surface of a bubble again. Everything within the moving wall of slick vapor was hazy and hazel-tinted and he could see that the forest inside was distorted, wobbly, and occasionally shifting in time with the colors on the surface as they sped up and slowed down. And he couldn't get past the thin, watery, lucent barrier; as fragile as it looked, it was impenetrable by either any physical or magical force. He stood outside of the barrier, seething. After a while, he sat outside and just watched, hoping to see anything. Maybe he would see something happen within the scene behind the barrier or some opportunity to gain entrance. But nothing ever changed. There was only the constant flux between rapid and slow movements of amber and red blurs of trees and light inside of the pearly slice of air between him and the forest. 

 

*******

 

Barry had never felt so much pain in his feet before. He sat down on a large rock at the edge of the path and took off one of his boots to find that there were holes worn in the bottom. The ends of his robe were tattered and muddied, his whole body was sore, his hair was a mess, there were stripes of dirt on his face. And he was so tired. But there was an energy that burned fiercely in him that wouldn’t let him stop. He wanted to,  _ needed  _ to find Lup, more than anything he had ever needed to do in his life. He had started to talk to himself out loud at some point in what felt like years of wandering. He just needed to hear something other than the upsetting silence of the forest. 

 

“Eventually… right? I’ll find her soon. I can’t… I can’t not find her, I’ll find her, I will. She has to be -- she can’t be gone. She has to be somewhere.” As Barry talked aloud to himself, instead of comfort, he found that it made everything so much more real. His voice started shaking and he felt his lower lip tremble. “I just. I don’t... I can’t wait until the end of the year. I can’t. I need her, I need L-”

 

“Barry?”

 

He heard his name called from somewhere not too far away. He looked around, and he could mostly see all around him; there were only a few thin trees obscuring the immediate area. But he saw nothing. Was he hearing things?

 

“Lup? Lup, was that you?”   
  


“Oh gods, finally! Where are you?” 

 

Barry jumped to his feet, dropping his undone boot to the ground.

 

“I’m here, I’m here…” he spun around, looking for her. “I’m here, on the path -- there’s uh, some large rocks on the side of the path where I am. Where are you?” 

 

He swore he could hear the faint sound of steps approaching. And then, her voice. 

 

“By the rocks… I’m by some rocks, by the path… I don’t see you.” 

 

The voice was close, it felt like she was right next to him. 

 

“Lup, I can -- I can hear you, where-” as he moved in a circle, he felt something hit his hand. He stopped, startled, looking where it had just happened and seeing nothing. 

 

“Barry, I can hear you, you’re -- you sound like you’re-” 

 

Lup felt something hit her hand and stopped short. She started to feel around in front of her, and felt resistance. She remembered that at some point, there was something that she couldn’t see about herself. That something had vanished. She looked at her hands then - what was it that she couldn’t see before? She reached out in front of her and she felt something. 

 

“Oh.” Barry felt hands against his chest, but there was nothing and no one in front of him. 

 

“Barry?” 

 

He lifted his hands to his chest and placed them over where he felt hands on him. And then there were hands in his hands. Lup flinched at the sensation and he heard her gasp. Then he felt the hands twist around and grasp his back. 

 

“Lup… those are -- that’s you, right?” 

 

“Yeah, Barry. I can’t -- you can’t see me either, can you?” 

 

“No.” His voice fell to a whisper. He was just so happy that he found her, he barely cared about whatever else was happening. Even if he couldn’t see her, he could hear her, he could feel her. He was touching her, and she was there with him, she was safe. Everything else was secondary. He felt the sting of tears along with the relief that was welling up inside of him. 

 

Lup noticed that he had suddenly fallen silent.

“I’m so glad we found each other.”

 

Barry cleared his throat and tried to chase away the tremors in his voice. 

“Yeah. I am… Lup, I was -- I was, hah, kind of losing my mind looking for you, honestly.” 

 

Lup could hear the pain in his voice, as much as he was trying to hide it. She moved forward; it was strange, moving towards what looked like nothing. But she slowly, carefully, not knowing how much space there was to fill the gap, stepped forward and removed her hands from his. He gasped, his immediate reaction was terror for the one second that he couldn’t feel Lup. But then he felt her against him, her arms wrapping around him, her face brushing up close to his own as she clumsily found her way to his shoulder. She settled against him in a close embrace, and he wrapped his arms around the empty space in front of him and felt them connect with her body. 

 

The sky around them was clear aside from the sorrel haze that filtered the light from the sun and dappled the path under their feet as they stood holding onto each other, two invisible forms clinging desperately, afraid to lose the other. Lup burrowed her head into Barry’s shoulder and he could physically feel how much she missed him. He tightened his arms around her and his right hand moved upward to cradle the back of her head, his fingers becoming entangled in invisible swaths of her hair. His thumb brushed across the lower edge of her ear and Lup felt a shiver run through her that gave way to a tingling sort of warmth. She breathed in deeply and her thoughts froze even as her body moved. She lifted herself away from being buried in his shoulder, then tilted back and turned so that her cheek was against the palm he had laid against the back of her head. She circled her head in a nuzzling motion as she leaned into his touch. She sighed deeply in comfort and relief and Barry felt her breath across his cheek and heard the soothing tone of her exhale. He could feel her melting in his embrace, her head relaxing into the hand he had curled around her and he felt that his thumb was near the edge of her ear. He stroked along its side and he heard her breathing change. 

There was no visual connection, only feeling and holding. They felt the responses of their bodies to each other and the sounds of their breath. With everything else removed, even the smallest movements said so much more than they anticipated. Their minds still felt blurred and unable to focus; all that they had at their disposal to communicate with were the meaningful pauses in their breathing. They felt themselves falling into some light and bodiless place, felt that they were dissolving and reforming together, that they weren’t two separate entities at all but two bodies that were mistakenly separated at some point in history. As one, they felt a warm rush that stopped their heart and ceased their breath and built a dizzying pressure as they realized just how close their faces were to each other and how much closer they could be, that they  _ should  _ be. The pressure turned to a pounding that they could feel in the depth of their ears until the pounding was all that they could hear and everything else faded out, almost in the same way that sound and feeling and sensation faded out whenever they had died before. They were alive, but everything else was gone except for the little bit of space between them that they wanted to destroy, that they wanted to suffocate by drawing closer. They both kept their eyes  closed because there was nothing to look at if they couldn’t see each other. With her cheek pressed into his palm, she moved forward to search for him and bumped her nose into his chin. He felt her and responded by tilting down towards where she had caught his attention, and then the outer edges of their noses found their place against each other as their faces settled nearer to one another. Calm gave way to a burst of adrenaline and a quickened, hollow drumming within a heart they were sharing. The emotion of being so close flooded them and muted every sensation except for the feeling of where their faces met against each other, intensifying a dull pressure in the pit of their chests, a pressure that had been building for decades. 

Then, everything collapsed at once as the world outside of them made itself known and they felt small and separated in the universe once again. The sound of the sky cracking open shook the ground beneath their feet. It was the sound of the Hunger, but the sky around them was light and wasn’t broken in half by darkness. But it was there; they could hear it somewhere outside of the timeless forest they had been traversing. Lup settled her head back into Barry’s shoulder and he pulled her close into him once again and they held onto each other, knowing that it was over. They would be able to see each other soon. They kept their eyes closed and focused entirely on the feeling of being in each other’s arms as the sounds of a world being eaten alive rang out all around them. They felt themselves coming undone, but they held onto each other still. They could see the bright white flashes of the bonds that were tearing them apart illuminated behind the lids of their closed eyes. Their invisible bodies expanded into light and came undone, creating unspooled threads of luminous silver. There was a brief flash of a silhouette of strings that loosely outlined where their forms once stood, leaving behind a tangled glowing shape of their embracing bodies. And that was the last that world saw of them. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	47. The Point of Inevitability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Forty Seven

 

As all songs do, it began with the first note. 

  
  


The first time Barry saw Lup was at a meeting regarding the training of a crew that had been selected for a mission that sounded... unbelievable. A mission to explore other planar systems, other realities. An interdimensional expedition that a large part of Barry’s research, his time, years of his life, had all been for. There was a lot to go over, of course; it was a monumental undertaking with a million moving pieces. Barry listened intently, writing in his notebook without looking down; there were visuals being shown, facts being written on a whiteboard, and he didn’t want to miss a thing. Eventually, a lull occurred between speakers as the next person took a few minutes to ready the papers listing their talking points. Barry looked down at his notes for the first time in a while. He quickly scanned them and then turned to a clean page. Then, he timidly glanced around, quickly, not settling his eyes on anyone -- until he met eyes with the elven woman who was already looking at him before he saw her. She sat at the opposite end of the meeting room from him and was casually turned around with an arm hanging halfway off of the back of her chair, very obviously evaluating the people spread out around her. Barry panicked, knowing that he should have looked away at once. It was already too late; what was he doing, why wasn’t he looking away? And then she smiled at him, and he felt his face try to do the same back, but he was frozen. She winked at him before she turned around and started talking to the elven man next to her. Barry’s face was on fire -- that was someone who he was going to be working with, and he just  _ stared at her. _ And even worse, she was wearing a red IPRE jacket, which meant that she was a member of the seven person crew that he was also a part of. The team hadn’t even been introduced to each other yet, and he had already found a way to embarrass himself. And, it was in front of someone who he would be working with for  _ two months  _ in close quarters. He agonized over the incident for the rest of the meeting. He tried to imagine scenarios where the awkward moment hadn’t just happened -- imagined what he could have done, what he  _ should  _ have done instead. He had a hard time focusing because of it, but he pushed through and eventually calmed down. He desperately hoped that he hadn’t already made a bad impression with one of his colleagues. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she wouldn’t even remember. He did have a tendency to worry over things that were insignificant to everyone else, after all.

 

...

The first time that Lup saw Barry was at a briefing for a mission she had been accepted for, along with her brother. The meeting was meant to go over their individual roles and their training, what they would be doing, where they would need to be, when they would need to be there and for how long. It was the first time that everyone involved in the mission was in the same room. 

She was bored, and when she was bored she could still easily listen and retain information with complete accuracy, but she wouldn’t be able to keep her eyes from roaming, looking for something interesting. She glanced at the people that she was going to be working with. There were the members that would stay on the ground; the ones who would be running their training, assisting in additional research before their departure, or whatever other roles they may have had. Not particularly interesting to her. Then, there was the rest of the team that her and her brother would actually be traveling with. She eyed the guy with glasses who was furiously writing notes while not even looking at the pad of paper set in his lap. He was intently focused on the rotating persons rattling off their individual reports and lectures; so much so that he couldn’t even look away. He finally looked down at his notes in between speakers, and after a brief moment of scanning over them and finding them satisfactory, he looked up and sort of nervously glanced around. He had a look of utter shock on his face when his eyes met hers. It was kind of funny; he was going to be interesting to work with. She knew that one of the positions on her team was that of science officer, and she felt certain that the position belonged to that guy. The role was a solitary one, and he looked like the type to lean into that sort of thing; someone who would keep to himself. And, Lup was the type that enjoyed getting people like him to come out of their shell. She wanted to show him that she noticed him and that he didn’t need to be so startled; she wanted him to see that she was a playful and friendly presence, not an uptight one. So, she winked at him before turning around and facing forward once again. She started chatting with her brother and thought nothing more of the brief moment she shared with the guy in glasses on the other side of the room. 

 

...

 

Several times, they had nearly crossed paths before their lives officially intersected.

One of the times was when Lup was on a leisurely walk in the city. She cut through a plaza packed with stands and carts and large quantities of people buying the available wares. She pushed through the crowd so that she could get to the much less populated center of the plaza. She liked to sit by the fountain that was there for a moment before continuing her walks. Barry was walking on the sidewalk, the one that Lup had just stepped off of, on his way home from the library that was a few short blocks away from his apartment. With books under his arm, he moved to the edge of the sidewalk to avoid the crowds that were spilling out of the busy plaza. He eventually gave up nervously making his way around the throngs of people and crossed the street where the sidewalk was empty. He went home with his books and didn’t leave his place for the rest of that day. 

 

Another time, Barry was the one on an aimless walk. It was night and there weren’t many people out. He was trying to clear his head; he was frustrated with an issue that had come up in his research that he was having a hard time figuring out. Lup was in a shop on the same side of the street just a block ahead of the direction he was walking. The shop was about to close and she was on her way out after having impulsively bought some satchels of dried lavender for her closet. Just as she left the shop, Barry made it to the corner of the block and, after taking in a deep breath of the clear and quiet night air, he suddenly had an idea. It wasn’t a complete solution to his problem, but it was something that could get him on his way to figuring it out. He turned around and quickly walked back towards his place, cursing the fact that he had forgotten to bring a notebook with him as he usually did. He repeated the idea over and over in his head, not wanting a single word to be out of place once he was able to reach his apartment and write it down. 

  
  


If either of them  _ had  _ come across each other at some point before they began to work together, they most likely would have kept walking with their eyes focused on their own paths directly in front of them. Or, Barry would have noticed Lup and maybe would have looked at her for just a second too long. And if that had happened, he would have broken his gaze, wondered what came over him, and then reprimanded himself. He would have turned red and he would have been able to tell because of the distinct sensation of a quickly rising cloud of warmth gathering around his face. He wouldn’t have known why that was happening to him. Lup would have noticed and smiled impishly, entertained and flattered by the fact that she gave the hunky nerd that just walked by a mini-heart attack. 

And if that situation had occurred, and if it had caused Barry to slow down a bit in order to recuperate from whatever it was that just happened to him, he would have approached the crosswalk at a slightly different time. In a daze, he wouldn’t have noticed the erratic movements of a mechanically failing delivery vehicle that would have crashed into and killed him. The research that he had worked on would have been picked up by others, but it would have taken much longer to produce the essential puzzle piece that allowed the IPRE to begin planning their interplanar expedition. By then, Lup and her brother would have already graduated from the academy and left the city in order to look for opportunities elsewhere. The call for IPRE recruits wouldn’t come until a year later, delayed by the loss of their head research scientist. And by that point, the planet that they inhabited would have only existed for three more days.

 

But that wasn’t what happened. They didn’t fall out of sync before they had even started. When they did start, they weren’t in tune, they didn’t have any practice, and they were entirely incapable of creating a melody together. They weren’t even aware that they could, at all. But, they did manage to play that first note together. And that initial step, no matter how shaky, is the most integral part to creating a song. Without it, a composition is not possible. 

 

...

 

Forty seven years after they started to work together, they stood next to four people with one other person in the cockpit of the dimension-jumping ship that they had inhabited together for nearly half of a century. Collectively, the seven people that made up the crew had started out mostly alone before they found their way to being scholars, professionals, and then to colleagues that swiftly ended up as a band of survivors that narrowly escaped the mouth of a world-ending storm. Together, they mourned the loss of their planet, their lives, their futures. They only had each other to lean on; they were the only people in all of existence who knew what each of them was going through. Inevitably, they began to evolve into friends. Friends, then family, and eventually into a pod of stitched-together souls with a closeness beyond anything that the word ‘family’ could accurately capture. 

 

It was in that forty seventh year that something different happened as they broke into a new plane; something that had never happened in any of their years together before. They were assailed by an inharmonious collection of sounds, words, and notes overlapping a thousandfold. It was grating, jarring, nearly unbearable. They instinctively covered their ears, but the noise was in them, not around them. The pandemonious clamor that they heard when entering that plane was so loud and abrupt, so unexpected, that even Davenport’s unfailingly steady hand was shaken, and the ship reeled a bit. There was an immediate pang of fear as they all thought that that was it, that they had entered a planar system that was going to destroy them all at once. And then the crew, the ship, and the only chance at reality itself surviving would be gone. 

But, as the noise stopped and they regained their footing and their racing, fear-stricken hearts settled, they realized that they were processing thousands of bits of information that had been implanted within them.

As the onslaught of information unspooled in their minds, each of them were particularly drawn to certain pieces. Magnus gravitated to some songs and stories that made him laugh; things that had been created by people with a good sense of humor that wanted to make other people happy. Merle connected with images of strange beauty and passionate attempts at outdoing the concept of art itself. Davenport felt the serene comfort and solidity of the traditional and classical arts, practiced and performed to the highest standards. Taako heard sayings and stories from silver-tongued people with inspirational words and invaluable advice, people with admirers and adoration. Lucretia felt a pull towards the many ways that lonely and quiet souls had used art to interact with and speak to the world outside of themselves. 

 

The moment before Lup and Barry regenerated, they had been tangled up in each other’s arms only to be separated and placed across from one another inside the ship. And, as they mutually felt the loss of each other’s touch and the loss of a moment that almost was, they were drawn to what made up a good portion of the cacophonous noise; stories and songs and poems and images of love. There was an entire subculture within the arts that was dedicated solely to the impossible task of capturing even the smallest of indescribable sensations of different kinds of love. Tragic love, true love, love that conquers, love that is deathless. As the images and sounds dissolved into their thoughts, they looked at each other and felt a silent connection. There were still shadowy corners that they were afraid of, but… they had a feeling of assuredness brewing somewhere within them. A feeling that told them that if there was something to change, they were in the year where it would happen, that the year wouldn’t end without  _ something  _ being different. And they were both terrified. 

 

***

 

In their pursuit of the light, the crew ended up in the Kingdom of Legato. Once there, they found themselves being educated about the kingdom by its chancellor; an earnest and firm woman named Marlow. She told them what role The Light of Creation played on their planet, and it was yet another surprising part of that year. It was kept safely inside of a mountain and had become something that the citizens of Legato, and surrounding kingdoms, would submit their creative works to. They would then wait to have their pieces accepted or rejected by the mountain, resulting in the works of art being either taken out of existence, or implanted into the minds of everyone on the planet. The crew felt unsure about when or how the negative side might come into play, or if the intentions and desires of the kingdoms were truly strong enough to have collectively harnessed the light for such a specific, harmless, beautiful, and creative reason. Whatever it was, they needed to abide by the laws of the land, and Marlow suggested that their one chance of gaining access to the mountain would be to submit works of their own. They would need to become students of the Legato Conservatory so that they could work towards creating an art piece good enough to be accepted by the mountain. They all spent the year on the same task, but separately. Aware of the difficulty of being accepted by the mountain, they knew that they would need to each submit their own piece if they were going to maximize their chances. And so, they parted ways for a good portion of their time in the Kingdom of Legato, working diligently on their individual creative pursuits in order to each make the best possible work of art that they could. 

 

***

 

After a short time thinking about what he would do, Taako decided on something that would get him admirers, followers, and the chance to inspire people -- maybe just a little bit for self gain. He had a collection of positive and inspirational quotes at his disposal in his memory; in between reading whatever material he could find in the worlds they had visited, he had basically memorized the scant collection of their home world books. He sometimes found himself missing a particular library from their home world; the one that he would often peruse while Lup was on her long walks around the city. He saw no harm in stealing inspirational quotes from a world that had ceased to exist -- it was  _ his  _ world afterall, and by recycling some of its greatest philosophical teachings, he would be keeping it alive in some small way. Plus, he wouldn’t have to work as hard as the rest of the crew, but would still almost definitely have a project good  enough to be accepted. He planned to use his spare time to explore the kingdom and take in its rich culture and amazing food. 

As he anticipated, he ended up having followers and didn’t have to go through the boredom of being trained by some professor of a planet that he wasn’t emotionally invested in. The scholars that eventually left their own studies to follow Taako scooped up every word that fell from his mouth and committed them to paper, essentially writing Taako’s book of aphorisms for him. His plans for the year worked perfectly; he did minimal work, had his ego stroked, and got to peruse the city for whatever caught his eye, accumulating recipes and ideas and new books to take with him when they inevitably left. There ended up being one hitch though; the students that he meant to only have help him with his work ended up meaning something to him. They eagerly took to the philosophical musings and advice on how to be positive and inspired and Taako cursed himself for picking that particular subject. He watched as the people in front of him became increasingly more invested in life and started planning for their futures; futures where they had the opportunity to become better versions of themselves. Looking into hopeful eyes of students that he had resolved to be uninterested in aside from his own temporary needs became painful. He started to care about them. 

 

***

 

Merle decided that his art for the year would be dancing. Maybe it was something about being killed so many times that made him want to connect with his body, especially in a way that would celebrate life, movement, freedom, and self-expression with reckless abandon. That year, he saw the opportunity to be entirely, genuinely himself while still working towards the goal of saving the world. He was incredibly happy about it, but maybe a little bit over-eager. He couldn’t decide on one form of dance but instead wanted to combine two styles that were arguably not related in the slightest; jazz and interpretive. The two professors that he enlisted in teaching him eventually grew frustrated enough with each other and with the concept that they left Merle on his own. At that point though, he had established a firm hold on the basics of dance and of his own personal style, in which he felt highly confident. With that confidence, he ended up leading his own class of students as he fumbled his way through creating an entirely new type of dance. The students didn’t mind that it was a concept still in the works and that maybe it needed a lot of smoothing out; it was something new, something that hadn’t been done before, and therefore a whole new territory of art to outdo other kingdoms with. 

Merle remembered how much he had wanted to do some sort of formal dance training when he lived in a city large enough for that to be something that existed. But, he was in that city specifically to train with the IPRE after having applied for the position of head physician and biologist for an interplanar journey. As soon as he had heard of the mission, he knew that there was no better opportunity to see and experience new things; he absolutely had to be part of it. He moved to the city with time to kill before training started, and he wanted to take advantage of the things that the city offered… but he hadn’t started to work yet, so he wasn’t exactly flush with cash. Which meant that the dance studio was out of the question, and once training started for the IPRE, it was unlikely that he would have time for such endeavors. The idea burrowed itself into his head anyways though, and he decided to take it upon himself - as he had always done before - to find ways and places and excuses to dance. One of his favorite spots in that long-gone city back on their home world had been a hilly park that was across the street from the market square. He had found a flat, open space in a little cluster of trees that felt like the perfect place to dance in the shade on the hot days of summer that he had free before he started training for the mission that would save him from the apocalypse and take him far away from home, forever. 

 

***

 

Davenport was already a skilled singer, but of course he wanted to make sure that he was the absolute best he could be, since there was so much riding on their works being accepted. On top of that, he didn’t live a life where he could consistently practice his hobby, so he was rustier than he wanted to be. And anyways, even when he did find himself with time to spare, he wasn’t crazy about the idea of practicing the parts of his skill that needed the most work where other people could hear him. It was different being with an instructor, though; it was an environment dedicated to singing and reviving atrophied skills. He learned many new techniques that hadn’t been explored within the classical training that had been available on their home world. But likewise, he knew of breathing patterns and tonal warmups from his home world that didn’t exist in Legato, and he took a considerable amount of pride in being able to share that sort of knowledge. 

He felt bad admitting it, even just to himself but -- he needed a little bit of space from the others. He needed to be in an environment like the one he got to be in that year. There was absolutely nothing that he wouldn’t do for his crew, and he had never emotionally opened up to people as much as he had with them over their many years together. But, he did thrive in environments with structure, consistency, clear goals, something to learn, something to work on. Everything about their lives was chaotic, unpredictable, and while he handled it as well as anyone else, it sometimes put him in a fairly bad state. And, as far as he had made progress emotionally, he still wasn’t great at leaning on anyone. In fact, when he did recruit someone for emotional support, it was always in a way where they weren’t aware that that was what they were providing for him. Playing games with Merle, spending quiet time with Lucretia reading or having tea, observing Lup’s magic practice and getting the second-hand satisfaction of letting out frustration as he watched her blow things up. Listening to Taako’s glib and pragmatic takes on various situations that helped to put things in perspective, listening to Magnus’s hearty laugh as he told stories about the people or animals of whatever world they were in, and having the occasional heart to heart with Barry. 

Davenport made frequent use of the private practice rooms in the music wing of the conservatory that year, and in his alone time, he thought about his crew while he honed his craft. He had never really wanted to sing around them, even thought it was something that he enjoyed. He had been coaxed into performing karaoke that one time by Merle, but other than that, he hid it away. He knew everyone else’s likes and dislikes, their talents, their hobbies, their hopes and fears, what they were like when they were happy or sad or afraid. He realized with a heavy heart that he was doing them, and himself, a disservice by keeping the relative distance that he had been. There were those few occasions where there wasn’t as much to worry about as usual during a calm year, and he would let his guard down a bit, but only to slip back into it the next time things were stressful. Maybe that wasn’t the answer. Maybe they would be more receptive and able to understand his decisions better and know how to talk to him if he allowed himself to open up more, and stayed that way. He didn’t enjoy the fact that he was always thinking that if he was emotionally distant, he couldn’t be emotionally manipulated. It was more and more apparent to him what a mistake it was to think that way; he was putting himself and the crew on opposite sides, expecting fights and disagreements before they happened. Their lives were nothing like anything he could have imagined, and he needed to treat it more like that, and less like he had superiors to report back to on a planet that didn’t exist anymore. 

 

***

 

As Lucretia was being led through the process of stretching her own canvas by the professor she was working with that year, she found herself remembering what Merle had talked to her about a couple of years before. He had encouraged her to get back to painting again and to not feel guilty about indulging in a hobby, and that it might even be something that would come in handy one day. She was entertained but also slightly rattled by the way Merle had essentially predicted the situation that she found herself in that year. She was still unsure though; she didn’t feel entirely confident that she would be one of the ones to have their work accepted and gain access to the mountain. She worked hard anyway, and was patient and diligent through a number of exercises and studies in color theory, contours, shading and lighting and perspective and every other little detail meant to improve her skills as a painter. She learned along with a handful of other hopeful students and started to accumulate a pile of art pieces from the studies they were required to participate in; paintings of different shapes and surfaces and materials, apples and vases and eggs and wooden cubes. And while she learned a lot, she looked over the pieces that she had made in her class and the loose drafts that she had piled in her room on the Starblaster with ideas of what her submission could be and -- she felt empty when she looked at them all. They were accurate and well done according to the standards for oil painting, but they spoke nothing to her. She wondered if that mattered though; the piece just needed to be something good, so she should create something that was a safe bet, something directly related to the techniques she had learned that year. But she started to question herself; how good could something really be if she felt nothing for it? If it didn’t move her, if it didn’t catch her eye or evoke a sense of pride even, it probably wasn’t interesting or unique enough to have any real impact on anyone else — and especially not good enough to be accepted by the mountain. 

She continued her training and stuck to the bland exercises until proper technique became second nature. And she still struggled with finding a subject for her final piece. She wondered what she could do that would mean something to her, that would stir up some emotional response, that would be something that she could be proud of. She thought about the painting of her family from their beach year, but wasn’t sure if something so obviously personal would be acceptable. Not a painting of any of them, not a self portrait. But also not a basket of fruit. 

She thought about the alien worlds they had traveled and wondered about painting something from one of them. Maybe some of the structures from the robot world; those were all very beautiful. She would have loved to experiment with the colors found there, the contrast of deep and bright green mosses growing on weather-worn beams of bronze. She had plenty of drawings from that world but, while it was something that she might have liked to try another time, there wasn’t much emotion tied to it other than the sadness of it having been yet another world they couldn’t save. 

Then, she remembered a place that she had once called home. A place where her life started, lonely as it may have been. It was yet another place that was saddening to recall, because it was also a planet that couldn’t be saved; but there was a whole host of other memories there, too. And, unlike the forty seven other planets Lucretia had seen, it was the only one that she could call hers -- even if it didn’t exist anymore. It had its drawbacks, its bad memories, but at one point in the distant past it was consistency, structure, safety. Home. She was lucky enough to have found a new home since then, and she was less lonely than she had been before. 

She finally thought of a place that made her happy, that brought her emotions, that felt personal to her, but also universal for those viewing it. She remembered the town square, with a large plaza at its center and a beautiful water feature at the center of that. It was where seasonal markets would be set up, crowded with carts and people. It was usually too much for her to be in the middle of, but she did love sitting at a certain bench in a hilly part of the park across the street. From there, she used to look over at the market and draw quick sketches of the constantly moving scenes. She had many of those sketches still, but even better than that, she had a vivid image in her mind of how it looked, even after almost fifty years. She never realized how much she felt for that place; at the time, she didn’t think that it was anything more than somewhere to practice drawing. But she missed it, and she wanted to see it again. So she decided to paint it. 

 

***

 

Magnus was immediately drawn to the idea of sculpture, specifically wood carving. He first saw it as an opportunity to use his grandfather’s knife and to do something that he understood -- exerting strength against a challenge. But, in approaching it from the direction of using what he thought was his only skill, he grew more and more frustrated with how much that approach didn’t work. At first, he wanted to quit entirely, but instead he ended up with a different professor. He was encouraged to take his time and to exercise care. He was told that by doing that, he would be able to make something much better than anything that acts of strength and destruction could produce. And that was when Magnus acquired a desire to create instead of destroy. At first he felt apprehensive; he didn’t know how a skill or desire like that might help his family in the long run, since it was only going to matter for that one particular year. He was taking away time from physical activity in order to sit and carve, and it made him antsy. But, he learned to go slower and slower, to apply less pressure, to take more care. He figured out how to use his large, strong hands in a gentle and precise manner as he deliberately and softly ran his knife over the surface of the wood that he was presented with. He began to feel a connection with the materials that he worked with, rather than a violent distance. The pieces he made went from sharp, blocky shapes to smoother, more informed and recognizable creations. It eventually turned into a feverish obsession; every time he made even the smallest improvement, the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction was greater than anything he had experienced in a long time. He was extremely excited, and whenever they had time to cross paths for a bit, he couldn’t help but rattle on to Lucretia about how wonderful it was to create something, and that he understood why she painted. He insisted that when they left that planet, they should create art together, and that maybe she could paint one of his carvings. Lucretia laughed and found his eagerness endearing. It was good to see him so happy and unburdened.

Once Magnus really started to get the hang of carving, he began work on the piece that he was going to submit to the mountain. He took exponentially more care and time with it than any of the others before. It was an emotional and heavy experience, learning a patience he had never felt before, an attention to detail, a sensitivity for the act of creation. It was difficult, but once it started to feel natural, it stirred something in his heart. A sore spot, a spot that had been injured over and over again, a spot that wasn’t growing over with scar tissue but rather becoming more and more tender.

As he carved that last piece and saw it coming together and actually looking as he had envisioned it, he was overwhelmed with emotion from seeing something of his own creation manifest in front of him, and all because of his hands, because of his time and care. With his heart so completely open and soft, he carved away thin strips of wood and he meditated on years past and started to find ways to let go of some of his pain. He saw the faces of people and animals that he had loved fiercely over the years, the ones that he couldn’t protect, and he felt sadness for them all over again. But, something new was growing in him; an appreciation for the fact that he ever got to know them at all. It was something to be happy about, that there was time he got to spend knowing and seeing and befriending so many. Instead of pushing the thoughts away, he let himself open up to remembering their smiles, to remembering the good times he had talking to new people, playing with children and animals, and making friends that he knew he would have to let go of. And, once he allowed himself to remember and appreciate those things that were gone, something made his heart feel incredibly light. He felt something soft but firm tug at it, activate it. There was a strong force coming from somewhere in the universe that was letting him know that it was okay to let that sore bit of his heart stay open, and that he should work to keep it open, even as more pain came in the future. Because, something was going to happen one day, and he needed to be ready. Ready to have his heart broken in a way that would affect him for a lifetime, but that would be worth absolutely every last drop of pain that would follow. He felt an unbreakably strong connection that was like a warm pull from a string made of soft light that was tangled around and through his heart, and he smiled as he ran the knife along the piece of wood held firmly in his broad palm. He was distracted just for a split second and nicked his finger, getting some blood stained into the wood of his piece. He laughed at himself as he stuck his finger in his mouth to stop the bleeding. 

 

***

 

The crew saw much less of each other that year than normal. They sometimes returned to the Starblaster to sleep, or at least two people at a time always did -- just in case. They had been offered sleeping accommodations in the student housing for the Conservatory, and after long days of rigorous practice, they frequently found themselves wanting to crash into their beds rather than make the walk back to the ship. But, other than a few shared meal breaks, some nights together on the ship, or meetings to check in with Chancellor Marlow, the crew was fairly busy doing their own separate tasks. Except for Lup and Barry, who were working together on their submission to the mountain. They were tireless in their practice, and it seemed to the others like they saw even less of Lup and Barry than anyone else. 

Time went by quickly with so much work, and the day eventually came for them to submit their finished projects to the mountain. They all felt accomplished, proud of the work they had done for the year and the creations that they had to show for it. 

Once they were seated in the crowd and watching as pieces were submitted, waiting for their own turns to do so, the tension grew to an unbearably palpable level. It wasn’t the same type of stress that they had grown used to over the course of their journey, and with how consumed they had been in their training for the year, they had barely given any thought to the actual performance and submission process until it was upon them. Taako felt mostly unaffected by the pressure -- the fact that he hadn’t come up with his submission on his own meant that he didn’t fear rejection. He had put himself in a position where he wasn’t vulnerable to some discerning mountain that decided whether or not people’s hard work was good enough to exist at all. And Merle... was seemingly incapable of stage fright and actually couldn’t wait to perform. Davenport was confident in himself and the work he had done that year, but he always felt pressure to do anything he did to the highest standard, and that made him nervous. Lucretia was having doubts about the subject that she had chosen for her painting, even though she really did like it. Which only made the prospect of it being rejected even more terrifying -- would she only forget about the painting itself if that happened, or since she had based it on a memory, would she not remember the town square at all? Would she entirely forget her time spent in the park in her favorite drawing spot? Had she made a mistake? And then there was Magnus -- as proud as he had been of his wooden duck that he worked so hard to be able to create, he felt more and more unsure of himself as he watched others take the stage and saw how everyone else’s practice had produced works of fine art, things that were professional and polished. He suddenly lost his pride and found a lump in his throat instead.

 

One by one, the crew members took their turns and found that their pieces were all accepted -- Taako felt basically the same as he had before his presentation, Merle’s ego was nearing an annoying level and he would not hear of being called anything other than ‘Professor Merle’, Davenport was hyper-aware of one small mistake that he made in his performance, but he reminded himself that he was trying to let go of some of that perfectionism and relaxed a bit. Lucretia felt immense relief  that her painting was accepted and that she didn’t have to find out the hard way whether a piece of art attached to a memory would erase the memory entirely. And Magnus, even though his piece seemed to be accepted with less enthusiasm than the others, was moved to tears; the pride he had previously felt for his creation was justified and it allowed him to feel that pride once again. 

 

After the rest of the crew had submitted their contributions, Barry and Lup took the stage. Taako had never seen his sister so -- nervous. It was a strange look on her and it made him wonder what else was going on. There was no way that she was feeling stage fright or doubt about their piece being accepted; that wasn’t Lup, because Lup kicked ass basically all the time and she knew it. Something else was happening, and between the way she was acting around Barry, and the fact that Taako had barely seen either of them all year, he felt sure that he knew shit was about to finally pop off with the two of them. But, if it got stupid-close to happening and then didn’t for whatever reason and he had to hear more excuses, he was going to actually lose his fucking mind. 

 

...

For the majority of that cycle, Barry and Lup had thrown themselves head first into their work. In the beginning when everyone was deciding on what to do for the year, it wasn’t even a question of whether or not they would do their piece together. Decades before, Lup had found out that Barry played a bit of piano in his previous life. She kept that fact tucked away in the back of her mind -- if they ever came across a reality where it would be possible for her to see him play, she  _ really  _ wanted that to happen. And then, there was finally the opportunity, and the fact that it was  _ that  _ year made it feel like just one more event in a string of endless signs that she was becoming painfully aware of. So, of course their project  _ had _ to include that. Even though it had been so long since Barry played that he essentially had to learn from scratch, she was ecstatic to finally witness Barry’s musical side.

 

Lup felt an immediate connection to the violin when they were meeting with their professor for the year. They talked about skill level, what type of music they were looking to perform, and when it came to figuring out what Lup would play, as soon as she touched the violin in the storage room of the music wing of the Conservatory campus, she was sure that was it. Its shape, its sound, the way it felt in her hands -- the sweet resonant tone that it made, both hollow and deep. It produced a melancholy sort of noise that seemed to be calling out for something, a doleful cry of vibrato music imploring the void, expressing its wants, begging for someone to come home to it. It just seemed right, the way that it felt as she pushed and pulled the bow across the strings to create those lonely sighs and honey-smooth notes in a brightly singing voice. It _sounded_ like her feelings, it felt natural in her hands, and -- she was pretty sure that she saw something in Barry’s expression when she picked it up and the professor showed her how to play a few notes to test it out. 

 

And so they began; they threw themselves into their work and avoided talking about the way their previous year had ended. They didn’t know how to broach the subject, and so much time had passed between the end of the year and the beginning of their practice. They didn’t have a moment alone for a while between being reconnected with the crew and then meeting with people in the kingdom, the chancellor, the staff at the Conservatory, and then the professors they were working with. It felt like, if they could have possibly faced talking about it, the moment had long since passed. And by then, they had thought about it too much, built up too much anxiety around it. So they pressed forward and put the energy of their unresolved moment into their music instead. 

 

As they moved from practicing their instruments into writing a song together, they predicted each other’s movements, inflections, the notes that they would use. They played, shakily, and eventually eased into something that coordinated so smoothly that it was like they had been playing together for years... which in a way, they had. They learned a lot about and from each other over the years, and their friendship and their professional relationship gifted them with a powerful ability to predict the other 's actions and feelings. 

 

And, speaking of feelings and being able to see and predict them...

Lup had talked herself out of even trying to guess Barry’s feelings when it came to one particular subject so many times over the years. She didn’t want to project her wants onto him, didn’t want to set herself up to be crushed, didn’t want to cross boundaries with him. They were family. They meant everything to each other, just as they all meant everything to each other, and she wanted so badly for that to be enough for her. Any time that she thought she might have seen something between them, she found a whole host of reasons of why it would be a bad idea to follow that thought, to pull on that thread and see where it went. Because what if pulling on that thread unraveled everything? What if it destroyed the wonderful things that they already had together, just because she wanted to gamble at getting more? They both were so in tune with each other for so long, being able to read each other so well in basically every area other than  _ those  _ particular types of feelings. Somehow, they had both found a way to be blind to the love between each other, even as they were able to interpret slight changes in tone of voice and facial expressions when it came to other emotions and inner thoughts. 

 

They had gone from not having the same position or type of work in their journey to working almost exclusively together, save for when she was spending her time on becoming stronger as an individual while Barry was doing the same thing in other ways. And even then, they would talk to each other about their individual work afterwards; at the end of a day apart, she was always excited to tell Barry about major advancements she had made, and he would be eager to hear about anything and everything she had done. And likewise, she delighted in hearing about his work or about anything new that he had studied. The excitement of talking and sharing never stopped and never became dull in the slightest over the years. It parallelled something that felt domestic, like coming home from work and telling each other about their days. It was as if they were on their home world and everything was normal and safe. It was simple, boring even, but every single simple, boring, routine thing that she did with him made her happy. And in contrast to that, their lives were also more daring and exciting because of each other. They were by far the most adventurous in approaching new planes out of anyone else on the ship. He was always more than willing to find new ways to experiment or to interact with worlds, always willing to do whatever wild and seemingly pointless things she wanted to do just to see what would happen, and he was often thinking of his own ways to shake things up. They both understood that science and exploration was sometimes methodical, but that the best way to find truly new and exciting things was to not hold back and to not dismiss any idea or impulse. 

She already frequently began most days and ended most nights with him, but there was just that little slice left, that one unexplored space that was exactly the piece that would fit just so perfectly in her heart -- those last few moments of the day, the moment that his eyes closed, the moment that his eyes opened in the morning and everything after that. The groggy half awake minutes, the mumbled good mornings, the slow rise into wakefulness. It was something that she didn’t get to share with him every day, and she wanted it, needed that last little bit so badly.

 

She remembered times they had together before she identified her feelings for him. Wanting to take him to see any interesting thing she had found on her own out in a world, wanting to hang all over him, waking up excited to work with him, eager to learn new things about him and to tell him all about herself. How did she not realize that she was in love with him even then? She searched her feelings and found that she had obviously been fond of him from early on.

Expeditions felt like sightseeing trips, simple lunch breaks were like picnics, and work felt like friendship. He had to feel something too, right? Otherwise those things wouldn’t feel like that -- there was no way it was one sided. She would feel rejection or friction or  _ something  _ about their interactions if he didn’t feel that way, right? They wouldn’t be in tune and their friendship wouldn’t feel so much like music if there wasn’t something more to discover within the notes. There had to be at least enough feelings there from him to build something -- even if those feelings weren’t as strong as hers. They had long ago constructed an unbreakable foundation and continued to reinforce it for years and years. They needed to build on that foundation, finally. And in writing their song, they did begin to build… something. And it was time to find out what it was, what it wasn’t, what it could be. 

 

As Lup shaped her hand into an arc around the neck of the violin, she wondered what Barry was seeing in her as they practiced together. Wondered what he was thinking any time he glanced up at her. 

Over the months, she had enjoyed watching him working with their instructor. The way that he followed direction was, as always, reflective of his fierce desire to learn, to perfect anything that he touched. And it made her think about him touching her -- making her feel perfected and complete in a way that she had never known she needed. She wanted to have him exercise that fierce desire on her, for him to have a fierce desire to learn  _ her. _ And, to have the chance to fully learn him back, to find and absorb every last thing that there was to him. Everything in the tiny couple of shadowy spots that she hadn’t permeated already. There was still more to him. And she wanted it. Wanted it all. 

She had always been focused on getting the things that she needed to survive or to be happy, even fleetingly; to just do the things that felt right, that felt good, that made her better, sharper. She had never thought about needing or wanting more than that until she started to love Barry. Suddenly, there was a missing piece that she had never been aware of, a piece of her that was carved out for him. Once she noticed it, she felt what a wound it was, and ever since then she had been desperate for it to be healed. And she saw his hands and knew that those were the tools that she wanted to heal that wound. His delicate yet rough, his skilled yet clumsy, his confident yet nervous, soft and scarred hands. The hands that she had seen shaking, had seen perfectly steady and balanced; the hands that she was getting to watch create from nothing the miraculous concept of music alongside her that year. 

He caught her staring at him when he looked up for a moment, just after their instructor had helped him to place his hands in the proper form. As their instructor left Barry to walk over to Lup, in that small moment before they started playing once more, he caught her looking at him and what he saw was that she was looking at him with all of the longing that she had felt for him throughout their journey. The aching longing that was the backdrop throughout their travels over strange lands, throughout their deaths together, their deaths apart from each other, their moments comforting each other, holding one another, watching the stars together… she looked at him with all of that longing, and he smiled. And his gaze on her was so soft and heavy with meaning that she saw just then how much he cared for her. She was sure that she saw it, hidden in those few seconds in between their training. He cared for her; he always had of course, but that look was… it revealed something different. He cared for her so much that he had held his feelings close to his heart so that she would be free, unburdened, without guilt or pressure or responsibility for his feelings. Gods, she  _ knew  _ him, she knew what he was like -- that was  _ exactly  _ the sort of thing he would do, of course that’s what it was. He did, he must have... that’s what he had done, she saw it just then, because she looked at him  _ like that  _ so he looked at her  _ like that  _ and, not only did he look at her like that, but there was also the softest hint of pain, and finally it made sense. He cared for her in a way that surpassed his own wants and needs, that fought against the concept of  _ self  _ \-- that was how much he cared for her. Enough to override himself. For how long? For how long. It didn’t matter, because she knew that he would do that for however long, for however long his life was. He would care for her in that way until a permanent death. And never say anything, because

 he didn’t think that-

He wanted her to be happy, without a single complication, without a single hitch. That was why he did everything that he did, and he never did anything other than what she wanted or needed at any moment. How did she not see that? He never said anything about any feelings that might have been there because he didn’t think that-

-somehow she didn’t know and she didn’t see it until just then, in those three seconds. 

He didn’t think-

-over all of those years, he didn’t think that she might love him. He didn’t have an inkling, because if he did, if he thought at all that it was something she wanted, he would have made it evident. Because that was all that he wanted; whatever she wanted. It was so clear just then. She could have cried on the spot, but somehow she held herself together. 

He didn’t think, he didn’t know …

 But she did! Gods, she did. Of course she did. How could he not know? How could he not know how lovable he was? He was full of love, made of love, and he didn’t expect any back. But everyone loved him; it was  _ so  _ easy to love him. He worked hard for them, he was fun to be around, he was safety, he was comfort, he was reliability -- he was the incarnation of love at its most basic definition, he…

She knew he would do anything for anyone. And that was what she had always thought. But, while she had started to wonder recently, she never fully allowed herself to believe that he might love her differently, might love her  _ more. _

But in his eyes, she saw something. And she realized that she had seen it before; she just hadn’t noticed it in the way that she did in that moment. He wasn’t holding it back as much as he had before, because he had finally seen the way that she looked at him. It slipped out, it was bare, vulnerable, raw from the openness of their hearts as they created music together. That second of being just a little bit more obvious, a little bit stronger than either of them had ever been able to catch the other one looking at them before --  that was all it took. 

She knew. She was sure of it; not wondering it, not hoping for it. They were building something beautiful together. More than just a song, even. A life together. A life where they both knew that they loved each other. A life where it wasn’t a secret anymore. A life where there was no more longing, only being. 

That was the moment where for the second time in her life with Barry… she knew. 

 

The moment was this:

She looked at him and noticed how he looked back at her, while her hand formed a delicate arc around the neck of the violin in the manner that their instructor had shown her. Barry looked at her and noticed how she looked back at him after he had just had his hands placed in the correct form in which their instructor had shown him. They were posed, waiting for the exact second to begin playing; ready, synced, and just on the edge of starting the first note of their song. The first note, but for the hundredth time. That was the moment. 

…

 

Barry and Lup stepped up onto the large wooden platform of the outdoor stage, looking vastly different from how they normally saw each other every day when they were in their work clothes, in their IPRE robes. Barry wore a black suit and Lup followed him up the steps to the stage in a sleeveless black dress that fell in heavy curtains from her waist, only barely avoiding dragging on the ground. It was a little bit before sunset, before the world would be overtaken by the deep glow of dying daylight. The clouds hung low, made of miles of white and orange and purple puffed air, expanded into complex and dense curls, looking like islands for celestial beings, suspended in the sea of the sky. The sun poured onto the platform and Barry sat down at the piano as Lup walked to stand closer to the center of the stage. They had practiced a bit further away from each other, but she was nervous and didn’t want to be too far from him. He was relieved, and a little less nervous himself, seeing her standing closer than they were intended to. 

 

Lup looked over at Barry and she could feel a swirling, sharply uprising wind of whispering excitement that was almost like a pain in her chest, a feeling of a core-piercing, overwhelming suspense. 

Their nerves, their trembling hands, the way that they could physically feel the immense pressure of the crowd of eagerly waiting people -- all of that was dulled to a soft hum in the background by the smile that she gave Barry. A smile that made it feel like her whole body dipped along with her sweeping emotions, a smile that communicated the anticipation of finishing their song so that they could close the gap between them that felt like such an incredible distance. Everything else was jumbled noise in the background compared to the nearly guaranteed event that was going to happen next, the sweet loving pressure to perform perfectly for each other, the challenge of getting a hold of themselves and starting. Barry smiled back at Lup with the same look as the one that they had exchanged earlier in their practice. Not looking away, breathless, lovestruck and barely able to pick up the muscles of his face enough to fully smile, only managing a sort of lopsided look of bliss. A look that was heavy with meaning; a meaning that they had finally been able to translate. They nodded to each other and began their song. 

 

Lup closed her eyes, gently tilted into the chin rest of her violin, and laid the bow across the strings. She curled her hand around the neck, pressed down lightly, and let the bow glide, releasing a sweet, reverberant note that started at a whisper and swelled into a sound that so strongly captured the essence of mournful longing that she could feel it echoing in the pit of her heart. And at the same moment, behind the rising ring of the violin, Barry gently began to move his fingers along the keys to play the first measure of melodious chords that backed the lilting voice of Lup’s instrument. With his fingers across the keys and her bow across the strings, they played a composition made of notes like flowing amber, quieting to a whisper only to rise again to a rich, robust exclamation of romance that could be felt tremoring in the rib cage of each and every listener. 

Their song housed a raw emotion that was amplified by them being on stage and finally performing together, with enraptured witnesses to what their bond had created spread out before them. Even their professor was surprised at just how differently the same song that they had been practicing for months sounded once they were on stage near each other. 

 

Barry kept wanting to look over at her, and every time he let his eyes stray for a moment, he was knocked breathless. Her poise, her arms at a perfect angle as she played flawlessly, her expression of pure serenity — but he focused and made sure that he played perfectly along with her, that his notes matched his feelings for her. Instead of getting lost in looking at her, he wordlessly played their song and thought of her and felt her through his fingers along the keys. He knew if he played the notes just right, it would reach her. The notes would tell her how much he cared, how much he wanted everything to be perfect for her.

  
  
  


Once the last note of their song was played, the crowd was silent. What Barry and Lup had captured in a cage of golden musical bars was such a desperately longing feeling that it made others feel like they were missing something that they couldn’t quite place. A home, a person, some comfort; something that they deeply needed to be happy but had forgotten or hadn’t been able to find yet. The yearning that was distilled into Barry and Lup’s song was so great that others could feel the pain of it; the pain of decades of want. 

Barry stood from the chair of the piano and walked over to Lup. She held both her bow and violin in her hand hanging limply at her side. She reached out her other hand to Barry as he met her in the center of the stage. He took her hand and they faced the crowd. Finally realizing that the song was over, as much as it hurt to accept that it had ended, the crowd woke from a stupor and roared with applause. Barry and Lup raised their clasped hands and bowed, overdramatically on purpose, making light of the whole production in their own playful way. And once they rose from their bow, still laughing, they looked to each other before looking out at the crowd. And they felt each other’s hands lock together rather than fall apart once they were done showing gratitude to the audience in front of them. 

 

They had held hands before, a few times -- she had grabbed his hand once when Taako died and she needed an anchor, and he held her and kept her from being dragged away by grief. They held hands underwater in that silver pool where they went night-swimming, alone, just before dying together. Each time was important, meaningful. But it was different just then. It was… intentional. There was no tragedy, it wasn’t casual, it wasn’t taking a nervous leap at having some contact, it wasn’t just a friendly gesture -- it was  _ more. _ They felt their fingers interlace, deliberately, gently, as if the other’s fingers were made of glass. They both could feel the care, the tenderness that they had for each other in that grasp, a tenderness they had built together over the course of nearly half a century. And while they were both nervous, neither of them were nervous enough to let go of something so powerful, something that felt so right. Their hands just -- fit together. It was perfect. They had just been perfect.  _ They _ were perfect. 

She could feel the toughness of his palm against hers, and when her fingers slipped through his as they took each other’s hands, she felt the rough patch of skin on his finger from where he held his pencils too tightly. She had laughed about it years before when she first noticed it. She filed it away as just another little thing to think about at night, to mull over, to figure him out. Did he hold his writing utensils so firmly because he was distracted by his thoughts and was so intent on getting everything down? Was it because he couldn’t risk a single letter being out of line, and was that why his writing was so blocky and perfect?

 

Barry could feel the scars along Lup’s fingers; the scars that he noticed whenever they worked together and he saw her skilled and dexterous hands move along the equipment they shared in the lab. Then, he noticed the new calluses on her fingertips from her furious violin practice that year as they brushed across the top of his hand. He had seen her work hard and improve unbelievably rapidly at every single thing she had ever tried, but there was something truly special about that year, about watching her perfect an instrument, one that looked so natural and beautiful in her hands. He had been enraptured with watching her nimble, scarred hands float across the hollow-bodied vessel as she coaxed tender notes from the instrument. All year, he watched how she held it like an injured bird that she was comforting back to life, and he saw how her expression was one of being entirely lost in the connection between her and the instrument. He had watched the nearly year long process of her becoming one with it, of accepting the music, accepting the song they were building together into her very being. 

  
  


They held on, abundantly aware of every detail of each other’s hands. And then they held on tighter and tighter until they were desperately and inextricably linked to each other, silently communicating how much they didn’t want to let go. Barry’s heart stopped when Lup’s grasp kept tightening back as his did. Lup slowly inhaled in an effort to stay calm as she realized that Barry was tightening his hand around hers back. They could feel the desperate pleading, the confession in their grip. That was it. 

  
  


There was the moment where she knew that she was drawn to him in a way that was much more than as friends. 

There was the moment where she realized that she could no longer minimize how much she  _ loved  _ him. Where she couldn’t deny it at all anymore, where she had to admit that it wasn’t going away. 

There was the moment that had happened earlier in the year during their practice, where she knew that it was finally right. Where she knew that it was absolutely going to happen, soon. That it  _ had  _ to. 

And then there was that moment, right then. The moment where they both knew that they were… inevitable. That the year would not end without them together. 

The next moment… the next important moment of her life, the next important moment with Barry -- she knew it was not going to be a gut feeling or a realization like the ones before. The next moment was going to be them. 

Them. 

_ Them.  _

 

The moment was this:

“Barry. Do you wanna go talk somewhere for a while?”

It was an innocuous question, but he knew what it meant. For once, without a single shadow of doubt, he  _ knew. _ He stood there feeling as though all of his being, all of the blood in his body was weighed down into the space where their hands were touching -- like their hands were anchors in the ocean of an unsure life, a raging sea of uncertainty. It felt like confirmation that she- that  _ they-  _ were the only consistency that existed in all of reality. All he could feel in that moment was the weight of her hand in his, the weight of their hands together, a weight that could rival the densest ball of matter in all of space. That incredible weight that he could feel in every nerve, every vein -- it was a miracle that he was able to eke out the single one syllable response of-

“Yeah.” 

He wasn’t even embarrassed by the simplicity of his response. She knew. He knew that she knew, that she understood him. He wasn’t unsure anymore, and he would never be unsure again. Because Lup knew him.  _ Loved  _ him. It was a love that he never could have imagined was possible. But he felt it for her. And he was sure, just then, that she felt it for him. 

He could understand literal magic, all of space, other planes of existence, reality-consuming clouds, being reconstructed every year, surviving death, bonds that could grant immortality -- but he would never be able to understand how someone like Lup could even exist. And how he could be lucky enough to know her, to love her. Lucky enough to be loved by her. It was a greater mystery than anything in the vast expanse of the universe. And yet, it was the only thing that made any sense. The only real thing that existed. The only truth. That love like that could exist at all, for anyone. That love like that was even possible. And that it was possible for him. For him and for Lup. 

…

He swore he hadn’t taken a breath or even moved, but somehow they had crossed the short valley and were halfway up the grassy hill to the Conservatory, their hands never letting go since the stage. His body had no limitations, no feeling at all; the only part of him that he could feel was his hand holding hers. The only things that existed was his love for her, was the potential of that moment, was the inevitability of reaching the place of wherever it would be that they stopped and then looked to each other and then spoke. He was going to get to say the things that he had held on to for so long, he would get to hear… gods, he was going to get to hear her say what she felt about him. Because…  _ she felt things about him.  _ His head was reeling with the thought. But, how could he possibly express in words anything of what he felt? There were no words. There was only the ability to communicate through his eyes, through the way that he had always looked at her, the way that he looked at her that he had been hiding for decades. 

Her heart was pounding; it was the only part of her body that she could feel. And she knew where she was going, she knew where she was going to stop, she knew what was going to happen next. Yet, somehow all at once, the only thing that she really knew or felt or was aware of was the fact that Barry was holding her hand, that he was behind her, following -- then, she wondered how she could possibly be spending a single moment not looking at his face. She turned, still holding his hand, moving as fast as she could backwards up the hill, smiling and feeling like her heart was outside of her body, because in a way it was -- it was with him. And looking at his face, stumbling backwards, she took his other hand because how could they not be holding both hands? She saw in his expression the match of her own excitement, her own love, her own surrender. How did they ever think that they weren’t two perfectly balanced pieces that were meant to fit together? It felt silly to even think about, a joke, an impossible scenario that was already so far behind them, far in the distant past. That wasn’t real, them not being together. That would never be real again. There was no future on any planet, on any plane of existence, where it wouldn’t be Lup and Barry, Barry and Lup. 

Lup tripped backwards and only laughed as she clumsily let herself fall to the ground, every muscle in her body warm and fuzzy and too happy to resist gravity. She held tight onto Barry’s hands and he tumbled to the ground with her. He ended up at her side as they laughed, feeling lightheaded and noticing the tears forming in their eyes from the overwhelming happiness and deep relief of knowing that it was  _ happening. _ They felt together the emotional weight of having waited so long. Realizing how incredibly  _ good  _ everything felt just then made it all the more obvious that they had been in pain for a very long time. 

The hurt they had felt for years, for decades, was more tangible than ever. There was an enormous weight lifted from their hearts that made them feel light and unable to stop laughing and smiling, but they also knew how long they had waited, and while it was such a relief to not pretend anymore, the taste of pain underneath it was unable to be ignored. They had both let each other hurt for so long; they could have saved each other. They moved close together, lying on their sides in the grass, and looked wonderingly into the other’s eyes, making sure that everything was real, demanding a promise from the other that it was real, begging for confirmation with their look. They lightly and nervously laughed as they looked at each other… and they  _ looked  _ at each other. And they marveled at being able to look deep into the other’s eyes and not having to look away. He laid a hand on her cheek and she felt something move in the pit of her chest, and he felt his chest tighten as he held on to his breath. And then they pulled closer and Lup curled her head against his shoulder and they held each other tight as they slowly fell into deep sobbing together, arms and hands moving to clutch onto each other desperately, as if one of them might be torn away… and they both knew why. They had been in love for so long and it was all crashing down around them. They thought back on every moment they had ever spent together and realized how blatantly obvious it was that they were in love the whole time, how clearly the other one loved them,  _ of course he was in love with me the whole time, of course she was in love with me the whole time.  _ They could have been together then, they could have kept the other from hurting, they could have been as close as they were in that moment, but… at least they were finally, finally there. They cried because they were so relieved, so happy. They cried because the pain they had been in could finally stop. They cried because they had been so foolish. 

As they grabbed onto each other, they found their places against one another and fit themselves together. It felt like completion; the space on his chest underneath his chin was the perfect place for her to lay her head, the small of her back was exactly the right size for him to lay his hand on as he did just then. Her leg slipped in between his own, finding the spot to lay so that they were locked together, wound up close to each other, fitting into the spaces and contours that had been made for them.

It was clear. Of course it was them. Of course they were meant to be together. Of course it would be them always, from then on. Forever.

They continued to lie in the grass next to each other, the sun almost gone over the horizon and the cool evening wind making itself known over Lup’s bare shoulders, over Barry’s face wet with tears. He found his way with his arm between the grass and her side so that he could have both arms wrapped around her. He let his palms lie flat against her back, feeling her breathing, taking in every detail of her -- her warmth, her softness, the give of her body as he pressed his hands against her. He continued to hold her and drew his arms in closer, pulling her just the tiniest bit nearer to him, and she leaned herself into his tightening embrace, their chests pressed against each other, their breathing matching. She lifted her head from the spot under his chin, and they were so close that there was no space for their lips to be apart anymore. They moved painstakingly slowly into each other and started shaking just from the sensation of their lips gently pressing against each other and nothing more, unable to move for what seemed like forever, until her lips parted and pulled away slightly, a small breath escaping her. He felt like the life was draining from him in the most euphoric way. His eyes were heavy and his head was swimming as he moved his lips back towards hers, magnetically attracted to them, unable to be away from her. She leaned her parted lips nearer to his while he moved closer to her, still hesitant, hovering just a bit away. Their combined breath grew deeper, escaping through their noses. Even just the sound of their breathing was passionate and electrified and full of tension and anticipation. With their lips almost touching, the distance became unbearable, so they finally closed it. 

And then there was too much to keep track of as their lips desperately found each other over and over and over again, until they couldn’t breathe anymore and they had to part. They pressed their foreheads together, their eyes closed for a few more seconds before hazily opening, then pulled away to look at each other, to drink in the details of each other’s faces  _ they had never been so close before, it was like seeing each other for the first time, all those tiny details were so new.  _

They could feel the world turning underneath them, the coldness of the ground warmed by their bodies, the fresh evening air sweeping over the hill, the newness of everything. It felt as though a transformation had taken place, as if the seasons had rapidly changed from one into the next. There was a marked difference in their lives from the moment before they kissed to the moment after. They were new people. 

  
  


They looked at each other with wonder before they both realized that they hadn’t taken a breath for too long and exhaled together with soft laughter, closing their eyes and pressing their foreheads against one another’s again. 

 

Barry smiled, his heart feeling like it was vibrating rather than beating, his eyes still closed, rubbing his nose against hers. 

 

“You said you wanted to talk?” 

 

Lup laughed as her hand found its way from hanging over his shoulder to running through his hair. 

“Yeah, kinda goofed that up so far, huh?” 

 

She moved slightly back once more so that she could look at him while she traced her fingers lightly from his hair, over his ear, and along the side of his face. 

“Barry. I love you.” 

After a pause and a heavy exhale, Lup laughed with relief, with disbelief, emptying all of the breath in her chest. 

“I just -- I just got to say that! I love you, Barry,  _ I fucking love you.”  _

 

Barry smiled so wide that it was almost painful. He closed his eyes and tried to hold back his emotions enough to be able to talk. He once again pressed his forehead to hers and spoke closely and quietly to her. 

 

“Lup. I never knew that feeling like this was possible. I didn’t know that these were things that  _ could  _ be felt, I --” Barry sharply inhaled, both savoring the moment and not knowing how it could be real. He felt like when the words finally left his mouth he was going to deflate, dissolve, come undone -- as if holding onto those words for all those years was like a string that had been tightly, tortuously wound around him and had been keeping him together, keeping him human. Because saying  _ I love you  _ to Lup seemed like a set of magic words that would inspire a transcendence that he could not fathom, that would physically un-make him. He never saw it coming true.  _ But she just said it, she… _

He inhaled, breathing in the scent of wet grass, of clear, wind filled air- of Lup. He tightened his eyes and willed away the shakiness gathering in the back of his throat and pressed against her just a little bit more, held onto her a little bit tighter, because it was unbelievable and he needed to hold her tight, to make sure that it wasn’t a dream or a vision or something fake that the alien world they were in had conjured up. Lup went limp in his arms, melting with the sweet anticipation of hearing those words from Barry, of getting the confirmation of what she had wanted to be true for so long. 

 

“Lup. For such a -- for a long-” he paused to chase away the quavering in his voice again. “For a very long time...” He tilted away from her and, with his hand tangled in her hair, he gently coaxed her to tip her head slightly downward so that he could kiss her forehead before drawing her in even closer, even tighter, and settling his chin on top of her head. 

“I love you, Lup.” 

He couldn’t keep the tears from spilling over; it didn’t even feel like crying, it was just tears falling from him, unable to be contained. 

“I love you so much and I’ve loved you for so long. And I’ve loved you in so many different ways, for so many different reasons and -- I have cherished every second of your existence.” Barry had to stop talking to keep down the lump in his throat. He felt Lup burrow into him even further somehow, even though it felt like they couldn’t be any closer. She clung to him and they were both crushing each other with their embrace. 

 

It started to get chilly outside and they were finally able to manage the muscle strength to get up from where they had limply fallen. Lup shivered and rubbed her arms and Barry at once took off his suit jacket and placed it around her shoulders. Standing in front of her, he tugged at the jacket from each side to close it in on her, to keep her completely covered and warm. He became overwhelmed with tenderness for her and stepped close and wrapped her up in his arms. The sun set entirely behind them, illuminating their embracing silhouettes as the valley turned dark. Lup lifted her head from his shoulder and he heard her sniffle before she looked at him with misty eyes and a wide smile. 

“Wanna see if we can find a quiet spot to sit in the Conservatory?”

 

Barry nodded, an uncontainable grin on his face. 

“Let’s do that.” 

 

…

 

They had so much to say, so much to tell each other, things that they had wanted to say for so long… but it was hard to speak. Hard to think, hard to feel rooted in reality. They curled up together on a couch in a lounge area in the music hall of the Conservatory. The small room was only dimly lit from a light down the hall as most of the building was closed for the night. It was dead silent with there not being any classes at that time and with everyone still at the presentation ceremony to the mountain.

Where do you even start when you’ve been in love for that long? The thoughts and words and feelings of decades of want were too many. It felt like it was all going to tumble from them in a string of nonstop words, but it was also caught in their throats with the massiveness of it all. After a while of continuing to hold on to each other, mutually reveling in the simple fact that they were able to do that, able to snuggle up with each other on a couch in a dark room, Lup cleared her throat and tried to put together a question.

 

“How long?” 

 

Barry exhaled with a sort of soft laugh -- that was going to be maybe a huge reveal, but he felt safe telling her anything. 

“It was our, um -- towards the end of the ninth year. When you… when you talked to me and -- consoled me. So. Hah, uh- a pretty damn long time.” 

 

He heard Lup take a gently surprised intake of breath, and he tensed up. He swallowed and braced himself before speaking.

 

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry if that’s weird or-”

 

“No, Barry… at least in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t all that much later when I… when I knew. And also, it’s not like I wasn’t  _ very  _ fond of you before that or… gods, you really figured it out so much sooner than I did.”

 

Barry felt unsure if he should ask and hoped that she would supply him with the information, if she wanted to, so he waited silently.

 

“For me it was… so, it was in the robot world. Uh, Capital City.” 

 

Barry was shocked and his eyes went wide. 

“Really? That long?” 

 

“Yeah, well. Not as long as you.” 

Lup felt a bit sad; she felt bad for not having loved Barry longer, for not having suffered the same amount of time as he did. But he was elated -- not only did he think that his love was impossible in the first place, but he never would have guessed that she loved him for that long. He felt his heart soar, even though there was the underlying deep pain of knowing how long they could have been together, how long they kept their individual secrets that they would have actually been relieved and happy to have known. 

 

She sat curled up next to him with her head on his chest, his jacket still draped over her shoulders, listening to his heartbeat that she could clearly hear quicken each time she moved the fingers that she had dug into his hair as she massaged and pet his head. 

“It was when you were getting shocked by that robot you were fixing.”

 

Barry snort-laughed, taken off guard by the admission and the playful tone in Lup’s voice as she confessed. 

“What about that moment did it for you?”

 

Lup covered her mouth as she laughed, keeping her head planted against Barry’s chest. 

“It was- it was just how… caring you were. As always. It was... how you’re able to laugh and to care and how gentle you are, kind. You didn’t  _ have _ to help, and you could have easily been annoyed or mad and stopped. But you weren’t and you didn’t.” 

She ran her fingers through his hair with even more intent and care and he could feel his face on fire, the warmth spreading through his entire body. She straightened up and lifted her head from his chest so that she could look at him and moved her arms to encircle his neck. 

“It’s easy to love you, Barry. The only part about loving you that has been hard has been... not telling you.”

 

...

 

Once they heard people filtering back into the conservatory after the performance was over, they got up to leave, knowing that their time was done and that they would have to meet back up with the rest of the crew. And when they did get back to the crew and back to reality, they were greeted with bad news. After their entire year of work and after the celebratory mood they were in from having all of their works accepted, they were not able to gain access to the mountain. It felt like the whole year was a loss, and it was hard to feel joy or pride for their accomplishments in the face of the depressing fact that the planet they had thrived in was going to be lost to the Hunger. 

 

_ *** _

 

Magnus sat in a chair on the patio area of the Conservatory, enjoying the beautiful sunny day and carving away at hunks of wood that he had collected in the early morning. He was tired and almost nodded off at a few points; his night had been an eventful one. He had a hard time sleeping and had gone on a run and came across something -- unusual. Once he returned to the ship, he didn’t feel like there was any time to try getting back to sleep. 

On his run, he followed the trail that went through the valley and looped around near the cave mouth in the mountain. And that was where he saw something glowing. That something ended up being a floating jellyfish that gave him access to the mountain in order to show him that it had his wooden duck and, with some difficulty, communicated to him that it wanted more. Magnus was amazed by the creature and the whole situation and touched by the fact that he had made something so happy with his carving -- but unfortunately, what he found out while he was there was that the light wasn’t in the mountain. Apparently, the phenomenon that the people of that world referred to as The Light of Creation only coincidentally had the same name as the light they were looking for.

 

Sitting on the patio that morning, Magnus’s emotions were a bit all over the place. He was exhausted, he was troubled by the fact that they didn’t know where the light was and that they were nearly out of time. He felt like there was nothing that he could do... but he was also amazed by his discovery the night before, his time spent with the glowing jellyfish, and from learning that his carving being accepted was due to the fish loving what Magnus had made -- loved it enough to want more from him. It felt like the only thing that he could do with his time, and it was the only thing that was bringing him some comfort. He did his best to get as much done as possible while still making the best quality ducks that he could manage, so that he could quickly get back to the cave with his offering to the baby jellyfish. He worried about the light, about the planet -- but between the worry, there was the joy he felt about the amazing animal that he had met and the small ways that he was able to communicate and bond with it. But, in addition to all of those thoughts, there was one more thing that was giving him a sense of dread. What was going to happen to the animal that he was bonding with, to the creature that he had developed an immediate and strong connection to? Was he making gifts for it, just for everything to be ripped away from it, for its reality to be torn apart a few days later? He wasn’t sure what he would be able to do -- what the physics of their ship and breaking through realties would allow him to do. But, he knew that he wasn’t going to leave that planet without doing whatever he possibly could for his new friend. 

 

***

 

After being informed by Magnus that he had gained access to the mountain and that the Light of Creation was not inside, Barry and Lup ended up hurriedly taking to the Starblaster on their own. The rest of the crew stayed in Legato to ask around and see what else they might be able to do there. Barry and Lup used their skills in mapping and navigating to do everything that they could to sweep the continent as efficiently as possible while looking out for any signs of the light. 

They transitioned into work mode and focused. They did everything they could to pay close attention to every detail around them as they scanned the ground while they flew. At least they were so used to working together and so good at what they did that the surreal, floating feeling they were both experiencing didn’t impede them  _ too  _ much. As they traveled, every time one of them caught the other’s eyes, they smiled impossibly large smiles and laughed just a little bit; a mutual understanding between them that they  _ could not believe  _ that it was real, that things had changed between them in such a significant way. It was hard to mentally and emotionally grasp, nearly impossible to process. And, as timid and nervous as they still felt, they had a difficult time keeping any amount of distance between each other, but -- things just kept happening that kept them from being as close to each other as they wanted to be. 

When they had met back up with the crew once the submissions to the mountain were complete, coming back to such bad news did not make it feel like the time or the place to excitedly gloat about their love. After that, they were all up late together, planning and talking about what to do next back on the ship. Before she could get a moment alone with Taako, he left to visit the drinking hole where he knew some of his dedicated followers would be. Against his better judgement, he had started to care about them and wanted to get started early on recruiting whatever help he could. Davenport and Lucretia retired to their rooms earlier than the rest and after that, Lup and Barry exchanged meaningful glances for the next hour, each of them trying to figure out whether they could stagger their exits and then maybe sneak somewhere together once everyone was asleep. But, between staying up late, and then almost running into Magnus on his way out in the middle of the night, falling asleep while sitting in their beds in their rooms because they were so exhausted, almost running into Magnus again when he came back, and then soon after that being woken up early by Magnus to be given the bad news... they didn’t accomplish anything other than not getting any sleep. 

 

...

 

As they flew, Lup sat next to Barry with pen and paper, observing the land sprawling out in front of them while he took his turn piloting the ship. Occasionally, when she wasn’t actively writing or drawing or noting something about their surroundings, she would lay her hand on his knee, just needing to be touching him however she could in between her work. His heart would jump each time and it took everything in him to continue to focus on their path. 

It was nearing sunset and they were going to take turns flying and resting. They needed to be able to continue to search while in the dark, hoping that maybe they would be able to find the tell-tale glow of the light. That, and their schedule didn’t necessarily leave room for parking the ship overnight. They didn’t say it, because they both knew it, but they were disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to rest together, to hold onto each other for hours, to fall asleep in each other’s arms. It was everything that they had both wanted for so long and, once it was something that they could finally do, it was being delayed even longer. Still, they were happy enough to be occupying the same space and to be working together as usual.

 

As the sun began to set and the dim orange light washed over the deep green grass of the dips and rises in the valleys below them, Barry saw a cliff in the near distance. It had the perfect view of the sunset, awash in golden red hues, looking out over the world. He saw an opportunity and figured it wouldn’t hurt to take just a little bit of a break during their search. So, he landed the ship.

 

As she stood in the kitchen preparing food for her turn to eat and rest, Lup felt the humming descent of the ship. She quickly walked to the cockpit, thinking that either something was wrong or that Barry had seen the light. She made it to the door and Barry waved her into the cabin where she saw the breathtaking sight spread out in front of them. They walked out onto the deck together, hand in hand. They stood at the end where they normally did during the many times they had watched the stars together, and looked out over the cliff. And, just as the sun was disappearing over the edge of the world with its fiery light slowly extinguishing into the hazy beginning of evening, Barry turned to Lup and took up both of her hands in his. 

He lowered his head and laughed softly at himself. 

“You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to tell you that I love you while we were standing right here.”

 

Lup took one of her hands from his and used it to gently touch his chin and lift his shy gaze from the floor to her. 

“Well. Tell me now.” 

 

With his free hand, he caressed her cheek and looked at her through misty eyes. The light of the dying sun was catching on her golden freckles and deepening the sepia tones of her skin. He pored over every detail of her, still not able to believe that he didn’t need to feel afraid to let his eyes linger on her indefinitely. He brushed a thumb across her cheek as he looked at her in wonder. 

 

“I love you, Lup.” With his other hand still holding hers, he gently pulled her near him and the hand on her cheek circled over her shoulder and he found his fingers in her hair. She continued to move even closer to him and took both of her hands and held either side of his face as she closed her eyes and found his lips with her own. 

 

When she eventually pulled away, she looked at him lovingly and brushed aside his hair with her fingers. 

“You know I’m going to need to kiss you like, all of the time, right?”

 

Barry laughed a bit, even as he felt like his heart had just jumped into his throat. 

“Gods, I hope so.”  

 

***

 

When Magnus returned to the jellyfish cave, carrying a cloth bag with three freshly carved ducks in it, he invited Lucretia to come along with him. He had to calm the baby jellyfish who seemed startled by the presence of a second person, but after Lucretia shared her sketchbook with the creature, it seemed to interpret that as enough of a communication to trust her. And they made their way inside. 

They spent a bit of time in the cave, there being nothing else that they could do for the time being with Lup and Barry gone with the ship and the rest of the crew recruiting others to help in their desperate search for the light. Both Magnus’s and Lucretia’s practices for the year were fairly solitary ones, and they didn’t have a group of people or a network within the Conservatory to rally around them. It felt best for them to stay safe and keep within the bounds of the Conservatory property in case anything happened. 

Magnus bonded with the jellyfish more and more, which only made his anxiety about what would happen to it grow worse with every day they were closer to the Hunger coming. Lucretia spent time drawing the groups of larger jellyfish that wandered around the cavern and was having a pleasant time with Magnus in the damp and cold, but beautiful, place. Except for when she got splashed after getting too close to one of the pools in the cavern and ended up with stagnant, jellyfish-riddled cave water in her mouth.

 

***

 

Barry and Lup returned to Legato with the ship and no news on the light. Merle and his students, Taako and his followers, Davenport and his classmates had no luck, either. Magnus and Lucretia tried to communicate with the jellyfish in the cave to see if they might know something or if they could glean some way of using their strange and mysterious powers to aid them, but had no such luck. They reconvened and were having lunch together at one of the picnic tables in the Conservatory courtyard, talking over what steps, if any, they could take next. It was a morose meeting, and they were feeling defeated. They were coming up empty; what else could they do in a couple of days after they had already exhausted every resource and had scanned the expanse of the small continent. They didn’t necessarily have time to get out on the ground and search each area of the continent on foot and hope to just happen across it. They were starting to think that maybe they could at least try, maybe they would be lucky enough to stumble upon it before their time was up. However unlikely it was, they couldn’t just stop trying entirely. 

But, as they ate and talked about what to do, the decision ended up being made for them. They felt a sudden rush of cold air as the sky turned black above them and the grass of the verdant valley around them went grey. The Hunger was early, and not only was it early, it was just -- there. It didn’t slowly approach, it didn’t travel across the atmosphere and drift towards them before settling above and dropping its oozing pillars of tar. It was on them in a snap, as if a switch had been hit that turned off the lights of the entire world. Davenport was up and running and ordering the crew to follow; they had to leave immediately. They had become complacent over the years with always having the same amount of time, always getting a warning, always signaled to the approach of the Hunger by the echoing boom it made as it entered the plane and descended upon the world they inhabited. But something had changed for the worst. And there was no time to think about it, only time to act. Magnus was frozen for a moment, though, and Lup noticed. 

 

“Hey, bud, we’ve gotta go!” She grabbed at his arm to pull him along, but he stood still, his eyes frightened and desperate. 

 

“Don’t leave without me.” 

 

…

 

Lucretia followed Magnus to the jellyfish cavern while the rest of the crew, minus Davenport who stood at the helm, did their best to fight off the whipping tendrils of the Hunger from the deck of the ship. Lup’s power was at a point where she could tear through entire pillars with billowing flames, but there was still too much to hold off for long, and Davenport stood in the cockpit sweating bullets. It was taking everything in him to wait a couple more minutes than he wanted to, feeling sure that it would be their death sentence. He watched carefully from the window as he gripped the steering wheel, ready to go if the darkness advanced on them any more than it already had. Finally, he saw Barry pointing and yelling at something over the edge of the deck and Davenport leaned forward, holding his breath. Barry turned to the window and gave Davenport a thumbs up and he was finally able to breathe. He had them in the air at once and the crew hit the deck, feeling the ship accelerate rapidly, but needing to stay outside so that they could continue to keep the way as clear as they possibly could. Davenport flew them out as fast as the ship was capable of going; he knew he was putting a great amount of stress on the engine, but it was either that, or being destroyed completely. His heart raced as he narrowed his eyes and focused beyond the bright flashes of the constant firing of the crew at the inky pillars, and he successfully dashed around every obstacle. And, as always, he got them out safely. If he hadn’t been reassembled and put back together in a body that was a year younger and unstressed by the events of the moments before, he would have collapsed. 

 

Out in the common room, everyone had just been put back together, and as soon as he was aware of himself once more, Magnus was on his knees and weeping. He held onto the creature that he was praying would still be there. He was relieved that he hadn’t broken his promise when he told the little jellyfish’s family that he would take care of it. It was still with them, it was okay. He had been able to protect it, to protect something, finally, from one of the worlds they couldn’t save. And he had the tremendous honor of being able to continue protecting it. 

 

.

  
  


There were couples that had songs that were important to them; songs that they had heard at just the right time or shared a mutual love for, or a song where they could see themselves in the lyrics. But, Barry and Lup had created a song together, one that belonged to them, that defined their relationship. That was their song, and it would be for as long as they lived, and even after that. A song that was predicated on decades of a carefully built love that finally, finally came to fruition. And it was that song that they carried with them into another world, into another plane of existence.  

 

Just before they reassembled, Barry and Lup watched from the deck as the planet disappeared below them and darkness took over everything. But, they knew that light was about to come. A light that would claim them and give them another chance after returning them to their previous state, to the same selves that they began every year with -- the same selves that they were on the day they left their planet, so many years before. Exactly the same, except for the things that couldn’t change, the things that were going to be different from then on. 

They were going into a new year, together as always. Except…  _ together.  _ They caught each other’s eyes as they both had the same realization. They would be the same, but everything else would be different. They would never have to pretend, ever again. 

 

.

 

So many pivotal events of great importance happened that year, events that would permanently turn the tide of a band of heroes' lives, their future, their  _ story. _ But, in the case of Lup and Barry, that year marked a part of their history that would be held dear to them for forever. 

And so, we have reached the end of the story of how Lup and Barry fell in love. But, the story isn’t over yet; in fact, it’s only halfway through. And this next half is just as important as the first, if not more. Because, this next half of the story is about how two people in love became legends.


	48. When the Light Fades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Forty Eight

 

The wind howled outside, but it was almost musical in a way, unthreatening. They had the ship parked near a field that was made of hollow reeds that towered over their heads; fifteen feet tall at least. When the wind moved over them, it made the sound of hundreds of flutes being played at once, each one producing its own unique note depending on its size and density. 

 

Despite the huge plants, they only found very small samples of living creatures, but they were innumerably diverse. A handful of mud from around the base of a cluster of reeds would have ten or more small organisms, all different from each other and all different from samples they had taken from other areas. After a week of sample-collecting, they had only run into more than one specimen of the same species twice. If they did find the light, it would be a great way to test out its effects on a large amount of different specimens all at once. It was also an opportunity to see what would happen when they left that plane; they had previously thought that maybe size or complexity of an animal was a factor in whether it would remain after regeneration. Decades before, they had a rat on board multiple years in a row, but Magnus had been unable to bring a dog. But... Fisher was able to go with them. If they catalogued and recorded as much as they possibly could about each specimen they found, and then checked what ones they were left with after the year was over, maybe they would find some kind of pattern. In short, Barry and Lup had a lot of work cut out for them that year. But, on their first day there, after gathering samples before they ran out of daylight, Lup had something important to do.

 

...

 

“FINALLY, I was about near losing my shit.” Taako slammed a pillow into his face, muffling a short scream, a sound of frustration mixed with the relief of that frustration being over. Lup rolled her eyes at his dramatics. 

 

“I know it took so long -- but it’s perfect now. It sucked for a while… for a long while, actuall-”

 

Taako dropped the pillow. “Really? Did it? Did it suck? I hadn’t noticed.”

 

Lup narrowed her eyes at Taako and continued as if he hadn’t just interrupted her. 

“But I wouldn’t trade anything for how it happened. That was… it was…”

 

“Yeah yeah, it was pretty fucking magical, we were all there.”

 

Lup elbowed her brother. “C’mon, this is a big huge fucking thing.” 

 

“Yeah, I know it is. You just better not both ditch me entirely for each other.” 

 

Lup inhaled excitedly and a devious smile formed on her face. “Ohhh,  _ both?  _ You’re worried about getting your Barry time, too?”

 

“...Shutup.”

 

“Rude.”  

 

Taako sighed and got serious, but not yet fully dropping the snark. 

“... but really, Lup. I’m happy for you. And I’m glad you’re not agonizing over it anymore. Maybe you’ll actually be more fun again.” 

 

From her sitting position, Lup fell forward and wrapped Taako up in a hug, knocking him over. She cuddled up to him, grateful for his patience and his help in talking her through things with Barry over the years. But also, he was being a brat. So, while cuddling, she whispered to him:

“Shutup.” 

 

***

 

The wind was especially strong that night; enough to hear the melodic yet haunting howling made by the reeds from inside the ship. Taako was sleeping deeply, dead to the world, but Lup couldn’t sleep with the constant noise. It didn’t help that she was already very awake and energetic in general; she had been feeling a sense of non-stop elation ever since her and Barry had kissed and confessed to each other. It was all she could do to keep from tackling him into the mud and kissing him with every step they took as they explored the surface of their new world that day. Not that she still didn't steal a few kisses from him as they walked through the reeds, surprising him and turning him bright red every single time. But, she constantly just wanted to be wrapped around him, pressed against him; she wanted all of the closeness that she had restrained herself from for decades. 

 

Lup thought of something… she didn’t want to wake him up, but if she couldn’t sleep anyways, maybe she might as well pay him a visit. She promised herself that if quietly knocking at his door wasn’t enough to wake him up, that meant that he was probably sleeping deeply enough that she shouldn’t bother him, and she would go back to her room. Besides, she didn’t really want anyone to hear her going ham on his door; her entire day had been taken up by work and then talking with Taako, and telling everyone while they were eating dinner didn’t feel like the right way or time to make an announcement. Her and Barry had decided together to wait until the next day when they had time to actually talk to everyone and they weren’t distracted or exhausted. They needed to get it done as soon as possible; any one of them would feel injured if they thought they had been keeping something from them. 

 

Lup’s heart jumped when there was a rustling noise after knocking lightly at Barry’s door. She heard his slow, sleepy footsteps, and she shifted her weight from side to side as she antsily waited the few seconds that it took him to open the door for her. She melted at the sight of his ruffled hair, his sleepy eyes, and the way that his face changed when he realized that it was her standing there in the dark. He was at once fully awake and his smile was uncontainable as she made her way in and shut the door behind her. 

 

She leaned her back against the door, feeling like she couldn’t go all the way into the room until she explained herself.

 

“I can’t sleep. Damn loud-ass reeds.”

 

Barry sighed, his frustration obvious. 

 

“Yep, same. I’m tired as hell, but they’ve been keeping me up.” 

 

Lup hesitated before asking what she wanted to ask as she stood there, basking in how delightfully nervous and energized and uncharacteristically shy Barry made her feel. 

 

“... think it might help if we cuddle?” 

 

Barry sharply inhaled and his eyes went wide.

 

“I, uh… yes, yes I do.” 

 

Though, he realized immediately that it helping was probably entirely untrue -- sleeping next to her had been difficult during the couple of times it had happened before. Sleeping next to her while holding her and knowing that she loved him back was going to have his head exploding. 

 

Barry’s heart did flips as he watched Lup bound over to his bed and gracefully snake her way under his covers, looking at him expectantly before he even had time to react. He walked over, barely able to process the sight of  _ Lup  _ in his _ bed.  _ He carefully pulled aside the rumpled covers on his side of the bed and got in. Next to Lup. 

As soon as he was lying down, Lup squirmed over to be as close to him as possible. She put her forehead against his, her leg between his, and one arm hung over his side with the other  curled under his neck, stroking his hair. Just like how they had been when they started desperately holding onto each other on the spot where they fell on the hill, finding every space against each other that allowed them to be as close as possible. He held her and they cuddled against each other and then remained perfectly still, not wanting to give up a single inch of their contact. Barry underestimated how calming and natural it felt to be holding Lup, and Lup felt warm and safe in his arms. They soon fell into a deep sleep together, despite the hollow wailing of the reeds outside. The wailing that they could have easily protected themselves from had they thought to use a simple silencing spell, but -- they had barely been able to think of much, lately. 

 

***

  
  


Lup dragged Barry, blushing and apprehensive, down the hallway by the hand. He had of course agreed to do things how she had suggested, and he couldn’t really come up with anything better, so he went with her as she proudly marched him into the common room. She had hoped to get to everyone at once, but Magnus was the only one there. They had to start somewhere, and maybe telling everyone individually would actually be better. She raised the hand that was holding Barry’s a bit. 

 

“Hey Mags! Barry and I have an important announcement.” She stopped there, thinking that drawing attention to the fact that she was holding Barry’s hand said everything that needed to be said -- but Magnus just looked at them quizzically. 

 

“What is it?” 

 

Lup gestured towards her hand in Barry’s while Barry tried not to squirm under Magnus’s confused gaze. 

 

“I don’t get it.” 

 

“Oh my gods, Mags. Me and Barry.” 

 

Magnus just tilted his head. “Yeah, are you going somewhere?”

 

Lup half-laughed as she shook her head. “We’re together!” 

 

“Oh. But you almost always are?” 

 

Lup’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I-- but we’re like,  _ together.”  _

 

Magnus cocked his head again, still looking confused.

 

“Magnus,” Barry cleared his throat and spoke through the anxiousness that was happy and nervous and enjoyable and unbearable all at once. “Lup and I are uh- I guess uh, the words- for it would be- in a relationship.” Lup couldn’t help but laugh at Barry fumbling through telling Magnus about them and somehow finding a way to turn even more red. 

 

“Oh… oh! Aww, you guys!” Magnus jumped to his feet and before they knew what was happening, he had them both wrapped up in his arms, squeezing them in an enthusiastic hug. He held onto them for a moment and Lup swore that she heard him sniffle.

 

“Mags…” Lup pulled away and Magnus finally let go of the two of them. “Are you crying?” 

 

Standing in front of them, they saw that Magnus was indeed tearing up. He wiped at his eyes and smiled. 

 

“I’m just so happy for you two.” 

 

...

 

Davenport was taking some time in his office to catch up on Lucretia’s logs from the past couple years, jotting down his own notes as he looked for anything that stood out; things that went well or didn’t, what could change, what they should try again. He heard a knock at his office door. He straightened up and cleared his throat. 

 

“Come in; should be unlocked.”

 

Lup came barreling in, excitedly dragging Barry along with her, who looked equally excited. He had been nervous about telling everyone at first, but after telling Magnus, he realized how silly he was being. This was his family and he was  _ in love,  _ and his love was returned and Lup wanted to make sure that  _ everyone  _ knew, and how wonderful was that? 

 

Lup took in a deep breath, trying to get a hold on her bubbling excitement. 

“Guess what, Cap’n?”

 

Davenport looked over the sight of Barry and Lup enthusiastically gripping each other’s hands. He had the sudden realization that  _ that  _ must have been responsible for some of the tenseness and reluctance to say certain things that he had noticed with Barry whenever they had a one-on-one. Though of course he had concerns, as he always did about everything, he was glad for them, and glad to know that maybe Barry would be more comfortable in all areas of their conversations. 

 

“Yes, I thought that might have been the case after your performance last year. It was unfortunate that things got so hectic right after that. Well, congratulations. I’m very happy for you two.” 

 

Lup could tell that Davenport had a lot more going through his head than what he was saying.

 

“Congratulations, but you hope this doesn’t affect our work, is that it?” 

 

Davenport laughed. “You know me too well, Lup. But I promise; I really am very happy for you two.”

 

Lup beamed and Barry hadn’t stopped smiling the entire time. After talking a bit more, they left Davenport’s office, Barry’s hand practically being crushed by Lup’s.

 

…

 

They found Lucretia and Merle in the sunroom, Lucretia drawing the plants while Merle looked them over and tended to them. They barely noticed when Barry and Lup entered the room. 

 

“Hey, hey you guys…” 

 

Barry joined Lup in getting their attention, his heart racing so much that he couldn’t keep anything to himself anymore. 

 

“Hey, guys… over here.” 

 

Lup snickered and giddily continued to pester them until they turned around, even though they barely had the chance to yet. Her and Barry had just immediately entered the room and started tripping over each other whispering loudly at them and laughing to themselves. 

 

“Hey, psst, hey hey, check it out.” 

 

Merle looked up from his work, his hands still partially in the dirt while Lucretia looked up from her sketchbook. And they both saw Lup and Barry, hand in hand, equally huge grins on each of their faces. 

 

“Knew it!” Lucretia leaned over and tapped Merle on the shoulder. “You owe me tea for a week.”

 

Merle snapped his fingers. “Aw dang... Well, good on you, kids! Glad to see it.”

 

Lup squinted at Merle. “What does Luc mean, that you  _ owe  _ her?” 

 

Lucretia spoke up. “We had a bet.” 

 

Merle shrugged with his palms up. “I thought you guys were just really good friends.” 

 

Lucretia raised her eyebrows as she gesticulated towards the two of them. “Even after your  performance! Can you believe him? That was the most obvious thing in the world. In  _ all  _ of the worlds.” 

 

Lup and Barry felt a little bit deflated. The reaction to the reveal didn’t match their own energy and the two of them seemed almost unimpressed. Because they had been making bets? What else had the others felt or said about them over the years?… They would squeeze all of that out of them later, though. For the time being, they had a whole lot of affection that they needed to figure out how to fit in between their hours of work. 

 

***

It felt all at once natural and foreign -- being close, being closer. Hugging for longer, holding hands for no reason, being allowed to look at her with  _ that  _ expression, the one that he had sometimes fought so hard not to make that it made his face hurt. And then seeing her making those same expressions at him, along with little knowing smiles and sometimes barely pursed lips in a subtle kissing gesture from across the room.

They had spent so much time reconciling themselves to never having those sort of things with each other. It was enough that their close, loving moments felt surreal and sometimes almost wrong -- like those moments weren’t supposed to be happening. It sometimes felt like an especially realistic fantasy, one where that if they touched the other too firmly or with too much fervor that, like so many times before, the image would dissipate and it would all be lost until the next time they got so lucky as to dream of the other.

But it was real. It was real and that was the strangest thing about it. Because of the events of one day - one day that had been led up to by thousands of days - they somehow had to adjust from constantly telling themselves to let it go, to try and be happy without it... to instead rapidly falling and sinking into it. They had never thought that they would be running their fingers over the other one’s hands like  _ that, _ that they would be intentionally maintaining eye contact rather than accidentally doing so and having to break away to not be caught. They were hiding nothing, they were softly and gingerly working up to touching each other everywhere that they had imagined before; a kiss on her forehead, her fingers running through his hair, a hand on her cheek while he looked into her eyes with a half lidded expression, breathless, taken in by her. Holding hands and brushing a thumb across the top of the other’s hand intentionally, feeling each other's skin, a squeeze on the shoulder, a head in the crook of his neck, her breath not avoiding being on his ear as she quietly spoke words to him that she had been holding in for years. The dam was breaking, violently, loudly... the dam was  _ broken,  _ and as she spoke lovingly into his ear, he turned red as he always did and shivered as she traced her fingers up his back. He tilted towards her and let his lips relax against where her neck met her shoulder, listening and being undone by Lup’s words, I love you I love you I love you. 

_ I can’t believe I get to say I love you, I can’t believe that I get to hear I love you, I can’t believe that… _

She just wanted to say it over and over, until she felt that small exhale from when he became so overwhelmed that he couldn’t hold in his love anymore and would start kissing up and down her neck, saying I love you I love you I love you.

 

***

 

Lup sat cross-legged on the floor of the common room where the crew had put together a makeshift set-up for the baby jellyfish. Barry sat near her as they both watched and contemplated the creature. 

 

“I’m really glad that Magnus was able to save something, finally. Though, I wonder why bringing this guy along worked when all kinds of other stuff didn’t?” 

 

Barry nodded, not looking away from it because then he’d be looking at Lup and he wouldn’t be able to stop. 

“Yeah, that’s… I really don’t know. I’m not sure how we could test that, either.” 

 

“Uh-huh.” Lup was silent for a moment as she watched the baby jellyfish dip in and out of the different buckets of water they had placed around for it for whenever it needed to hydrate in between -- in between somehow floating around, as it did. She tapped her fingers along her knee, lost in thought.

“What do you think it thinks about us?” 

 

Barry looked towards the ceiling, thinking. 

“Hmm. Probably wonders why we stare at so much, first off.” 

 

Lup let out a single little huff of a laugh. She went silent again for a bit. 

“I wonder if it’s lonely.”

 

Barry turned and let himself finally look at Lup. Her face was so concerned, so soft. He would never cease being caught up in admiration and love for her empathy, for how she always found a way to step into the heads of others when she was worried about how they felt. He laughed to himself… what it sounded like from their long conversations over the course of that year so far, that particular part of her personality had played a large role in her avoiding touching him and in how she had worked desperately at not making her love obvious. Even if it had been part of the delay, it was something that he would never stop loving about her. 

 

...

 

“You wrote me letters? Barry! You  _ have  _ to let me read them.”

 

Barry laughed nervously. “I mean um… they’re maybe a little dramatic.” 

 

“Yeah, well I think that we’ve proven ourselves to be kind of dramatic people when it comes to -- us. Oh my gods,  _ us.”  _ Lup nearly squealed. She had been overwhelmed nearly every day by all of the ways that she was able to finally talk about them, about him in relation to her. 

 

Barry smiled and blushed at Lup’s excited noises. Seeing her so constantly delighted was melting his mind. 

“Well, yeah that’s true… I uh — yeah, I guess I could show you. Though, I did throw a lot of them away.”

 

Lup felt bad for him. Poor Barry… he probably tortured himself over those letters. And probably never thought he would actually give her one, let alone that she would have been happy to get it. 

 

“Oh! Hey, what if we pretend that we’re not together and you give me one of them and then I’ll react to it?” 

 

“W-wait — why?”

 

Lup smiled and spoke to him in her best flirty, teasing tone. 

“C’mon Bear, you got something against role play?” 

 

Barry couldn’t help but blush and Lup smiled impishly at him before lightly shoving his shoulder. 

 

“I don’t mean like  _ that.”  _

 

“No! I know, I know I j-just I --” 

 

“Oh, Barry.” Lup edged closer to him from where they sat on the edge of his bed. “Do I still make you that nervous?” 

 

Barry exhaled with a laugh. “I think you probably always will, at least a little bit.” 

 

“What if we work on some uh, what’s it called… immersion therapy?” 

 

“What do you mea-”

 

Lup interrupted Barry by hopping onto his lap, legs hanging over the side as she faced him, throwing her arms over his shoulders and hooking her hands behind him. She breathed in, ready to tease him more, but then she saw his wide eyes, his expression showing how overwhelmed he was by her very proximity to him. As she continued to look at him, she lost a little bit of the playfulness she was feeling and instead felt her whole body sigh as she was overcome with tenderness for him, for  _ her  _ Barry. 

 

He was taken off guard and was turning red, not sure what to do or what was happening; but then she seemed to soften once she was sitting on him with her arms flung around his neck. He  watched as she melted and he gave her a crooked, smitten smile and put his arms around her waist. She leaned in to kiss him and just as it had been each and every time they had kissed so far, he felt like his head was being emptied of everything except for her. Her and fireworks and a flame that warmed him from the inside out and turned his face red. They kissed softly, tentatively approaching each other, letting their touches last a long and sustained time, pulling back a bit to touch noses. She kissed him all over his face as she unhooked her hands from behind his neck and drew them back onto his shoulders, rubbing them a bit. Then, she moved her fingers up his neck and tangled them into his hair as she pressed her lips against his with more need, more intensity. Like a surging wave, he felt a sweeping uprise of emotions in him as she breathed harder and gripped his hair and he tightened his arms around her waist and pulled her a little bit closer to himself, kissing her back harder. 

They finally fell away and burst into laughter as they grabbed onto each other and hugged close. They were just so  _ happy.  _ All of the pain that they had ever felt seemed so far away. 

…

Ultimately, Barry agreed to Lup’s game. Though, as soon as he actually put the folded piece of paper in her hand, the reality of what was happening set in and every single word from that particular letter flooded his head and he panicked. She kissed him quickly before he could protest or try to talk his way back out of the whole thing, and then bound out of the room. She went to her own room to open it up, putting herself in her mindset from before they had gotten together. It was sad, but she felt sure that Barry’s letter was about to make her happy. Lup opened the folded piece of paper as she settled back into the pile of pillows on her bed. She began to excitedly pore over the paper, grinning from ear to ear, eager to read about Barry’s thoughts from before they got together. But, with each sentence her smile faded a bit more, until her mouth was agape and her eyebrows heavy with a growing emotion that she couldn’t quite place. Her head spun as she read, certain bits calling her attention and needing to be looked over multiple times. 

 

_ … There’s a moment where I can’t breathe when you walk into a room. And how many times has that happened over the years? But it never stops, Lup. And it doesn’t matter how much it hurts; I wish I could love you even more. Though, I don’t know if I would survive it… _

 

_ … How can I accurately express what it’s like to be in love with you? It’s indescribable... it’s something like suffocating in the vacuum of space, except that it’s okay because you get to see the sun closer than ever before and it’s mind-bendingly beautiful. Something like that, maybe. That’s as close as I can get to describing it…    _

 

_...Lup, I know that you don’t feel the same, that there’s no way you ever will. I’m not trying to change that, and I hope that I’m not making you feel bad. It really is selfish of me, telling you this. It’s all so that I can feel unburdened, so that I can stop feeling guilty. And what do you get? Knowing that I’ve been hiding something from you, knowing that I’ve felt a way about you that I’m sure you don’t want me to feel. It seems like I shouldn’t tell you one minute, and then the next it feels like every single moment that I don’t tell you is just furthering the betrayal. It’s almost funny -- faced with a conundrum like this, I would go to you for your advice, your opinion. I can’t really do that when it’s about you, though. I wish… I wish I could ask you for your help right now... _

 

In their time together so far, of course she felt how much he loved her. In every touch, every look, every word, there were a thousand things being said, silently, lovingly. But in his writing, there was even more… the quiet words echoed only to himself when he was the loneliest, the words that he wanted to give her but couldn’t, the ones that he was still hesitant to give her, that he thought would be ‘too much’ or ‘dramatic’. 

He was still restraining himself. Making sure that he didn’t make her uncomfortable. That he wasn’t too much. But he could never be. Ever. She wanted him, all of him;  _ too much  _ was exactly what she wanted. She went to find him. 

…

Lup couldn’t get words out around the tears at first. Barry was worried, but she was smiling. He got up, worried anyways, and went to walk over to her. She shut his door behind her and rushed over to him and swiftly threw her arms around his neck. Surprised, he hesitated before wrapping his arms around her. She held onto him, chin on his shoulder, lovingly nuzzling against the side of his face as he turned bright red and his breath caught in his throat. Then he realized… was she reacting to his note? He didn’t expect that. He squeezed her in his embrace and felt his heart swell; she really did love him. Even at his most desperate and dramatic and what he used to consider hopelessly pathetic of him… she loved him. He smiled as she rubbed the side of her face along his. She leaned back and looked at him before diving at him and kissing every inch of his face as he laughed, eyes shut, wondering how he could be so lucky. 

...

“The next time we’re somewhere with like, an actual society… and I guess, as long as we have some time around work… you wanna go on a date?” 

Barry smiled as he felt his breath taken away by the question, by the reality, the possibility. “Of  _ course.  _ What would you want to do?” 

“Hmm, what would you want to do with me? Is it something you’ve ever thought about before?”

 

“Wow, Lup… you can’t ask me that.” He laughed. “I’ve basically thought about going everywhere and doing everything with you in every world.”

Lup flirtatiously cocked her head in response and looked at him expectantly. 

Barry gulped. “I mean, there’s so much that we’ve already done, but I guess -- just us being together in this way would make things so... different. We can get dinner somewhere and-”

Lup softly gasped, “-and we could sit on the same side of the table and be close to each other.”

Barry was smitten with the idea and his eyes went all distant and dreamy. “Yeah… yeah. Heh, oh wow.” He shook his head, trying to think grounded thoughts. 

“Okay, and what else. We can find a place with books, like we usually do. Get some books and instead of trading back and forth as we finish them, we could read the same one at the same time and-” Barry almost teared up at the thought of doing something so small and simple that he had wanted for decades. He could hold Lup while they read from the same book. That was something that he could actually ask her for, that they could actually do.  

He looked her over as she continued to silently, lovingly gaze at him, waiting to hear more. 

“We could find every pointless fun thing to do in town. Really get to explore without being nervous around each other. I- I… there’s so much more we can do now, the more I think about it. But mostly, all of the same fun things we’ve done before but…” and he grabbed up one of her hands with both of his, speaking fervently, caught up in the fantasy. “All of the same things, but  getting to hold your hand and kiss you in between and during all of it. We could walk together, watch the days of each world turn into nights, like we’ve always done. Except that I could put my arm around you and tell you that I love you when the light fades.”

Misty eyed and breathless, Lup’s mouth curled into a smile.

“And every hour before that, right?”

Barry laughed. “Of course.” He grabbed her up in his arms and settled his forehead against hers. 

“How could I not?”  

***

As the sun set and their day faded into night, Barry and Lup worked together in the lab with the specimens that they had been diligently studying. They were doing everything they could to figure out how to best care for them in order to keep them alive as long as possible. They were both excited about the potential of anything new that they ever tripped over, and the diverse creatures of that world were no exception. And, even though it increased their workload as well as the intensity of their focus on their work, it didn’t feel like it was keeping them from anything else. It was part of their love, part of their story, part of their lives together. Looking up from a microscope to catch the other engrossed in reading over their notes was as much, if not more, a part of their love as holding on to each other throughout the night or dipping around a corner to quickly kiss was. 

But, the nature of their lives was as such that, even within the slow golden happiness they felt drowned in, they couldn’t help but wonder… wonder when the next time would be that one of them would have to be without the other. Wondered how it would feel. How deeply would it hurt. The closer they became, the worse the thought of being apart was. But, it was all the more reason to enjoy the time that they had together as much as they could. Focusing on what they could control, they both continued their work, periodically looking over at the other with a small, crooked smile, still unable to believe it all, even after almost an entire year together. 

  
  
  



	49. The Peacemaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Forty Nine

 

The Hunger was coming sooner. Only by a few days, but no matter how small the difference, it was a change in the way things worked. A change after almost half a decade of things going exactly the same, every year. It was cause for extreme concern.  

 

Everyone piled on Merle more than usual, coaching him on how to talk to John, what he should try to get out of him, whether or not there was anything that he had forgotten about, forgotten to report to them about past conversations. Lucretia and Davenport individually read over every log from years past on Merle’s conversations in parley, taking careful notes, trying to find anything at all that stood out, any sort of hidden meaning or clues that may have slipped by them. How could things have changed without them being any the wiser? There were the creatures that they had started to assume were scouts, skittering about still whenever Taako used blink to check in on the other plane. Maybe those creatures had somehow found out something about them that helped the Hunger to find them sooner. But why then? What did they figure out, and why did it make the difference of a few days? When would it be more? Was it the scouts, or was it the conversations with John, or some combination of the two? 

 

They wondered if Merle should stop seeing John entirely, or if they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they cut off their one potential shot at gathering information. Or, would continuing to interact with him only make things worse? Would their years continue to end a few days sooner for decades to come, or would they eventually be down to only having a couple months before having to run again… or less? They still hadn’t figured out how to make the most of an entire year; they couldn’t always find the light and they couldn’t spend enough time with it to find anything other than more questions. Then, they were left with even less than a year and they still had no grasp on how to make things any better. 

 

The crew racked their brains, thinking of questions, trying to find answers they might have been overlooking. Merle sat down on the common room floor and prepared to leave to talk to John. It wasn’t long before his foggy outline fell apart, dissolved into smoke, and faded away until there was no evidence of him ever having been there. Lup shuddered. 

 

“Gods, that’ll never stop being creepy.” 

  
  


Barry stared at where Merle had just been, nodding in agreement with Lup. 

“Yeah. Just knowing the moment that he got killed is…” Barry trailed off as he continued to look at the empty space. “...And we can’t even do anything except watch him disappear.”

  
  


Lucretia’s face was lined with worry. She silently stared at the floor, already thinking ahead to what she might be writing for Merle’s report at the beginning of the following year.

  
  


Taako crossed his arms and looked to the ground, tapping his foot nervously. Uncrossing his arms, he turned to Davenport. 

“How much longer are you gonna keep having him do this? Do you think it’ll ever work, or are you eventually just gonna make the decision to cut our losses?” 

 

Davenport stopped fidgeting with the end of his mustache and shook his head, breathing in deeply.

“Hell if I know. What else is there, though? He does what he can there, we do what we can here. And we just keep surviving until something changes.”

  
  


Lup had involuntarily balled her hands into fists, tense, on edge, but feeling determined. 

“Something has to change soon. Look at us. We’ve changed so much, we’ve become so much stronger, we know each other so much better; we’re gonna figure something out. Let’s trust in Merle to do his part, and let’s all keep working on ours.” 

  
  


Magnus nodded his head enthusiastically, looking at Lup gratefully for being encouraging, as she always was. 

“Lup’s right, it can't stay like this forever. We haven’t stayed the same and we may not know it, but we’re only getting closer all the time, no matter what it looks or feels like.”  

  
  


Davenport exhaled, dropping his shoulders, forcing himself to loosen up a bit and release the building tension in his body. He needed to get into the same mindset as Lup and Magnus; how was he supposed to help lead them to a positive outcome if he wasn’t envisioning a positive outcome? He wasn’t even sure whether or not he believed that one was possible… but, he needed to at least fool himself into believing that there was. For them. 

 

***

 

Magnus was laying on the floor of the common room, throwing a ball at the wall in front of him and catching it as it bounced back his direction. He stopped for a moment and leaned his head back enough to just barely see Taako from the corner of his vision, sitting on the couch and reading. He knew that Taako didn’t like being interrupted while he was reading, but he also knew that Taako didn’t sit out in the common room if he  _ really  _ didn’t feel like being bothered. Sitting around in common areas was his way of making himself available to them, even if he was doing something that made it seem otherwise. And Magnus had a lot on his mind; he needed Taako to be available to him so that he could get some of it out.

 

“What information do you think we could even get that’ll help us?”

 

Taako turned a page, barely even taking in the words. “Hmm, whatcha mean?”

 

“I mean with Merle and Joh- the Hunger.” Magnus looked back to the wall and threw the ball again, missing it as it bounced back towards him but not feeling the motivation to get up and find wherever it rolled off to. 

 

Taako closed and set down his book. “Well, if I knew… then I would have that information.”

 

Magnus sighed. “You know what I mean, not specific but like…” Magnus started and paused on a single syllable several times before giving up. “I don’t even know how to put it I guess. Never mind.”

 

“No, I do get what you mean, but like you just figured out, it’s kinda hard to think of what it could even be. We’re looking for an answer when we don’t really know what the question is. All we can hope for is that we’ll know it when we hear it. And that we hopefully haven’t already been given something important that we just didn’t recognize. Like, it could be one of those things where there’s an answer that is so simple that it was the last thing you’d think of because you’re only looking for big complicated stuff.”

 

Magnus folded his arms behind his head. “Nah, if it was something like that, Merle would’ve figured it out. That’s where he comes in with those sorta things.”

 

Taako shrugged and sank into the couch. 

“I guess he does sometimes. Even though other times he makes things needlessly complicated. So who knows how that’ll shake out.” He got up off of the couch and picked his book back up. He looked down at Magnus who was staring blankly at the ceiling, looking lost. Taako sighed. “I’m going to go put this beefy tome away, wanna go check out those hot springs? Never gonna find out whether or not they melt our skin off without hopping in.” 

 

Magnus rolled his large frame over and sprung to his feet from lying on the ground in a way that was more than a little impressive. Taako mused as he had many times before at how rapidly Magnus’s mood could change if he was presented with the right distraction. Magnus looked at Taako, smiling eagerly.

“Let’s! Do! It!” 

 

***

 

“Are you doing alright?”

 

Davenport was startled from his hypnotic stare out into the distance over the deck railing by Lucretia walking up to him. He exhaled and hesitated a moment before nodding.

“Yes, I am, thank you. Just considering our situation.” 

 

Lucretia hung her head as she stepped towards the railing, leaning her hands on the top rail, standing up straight as she looked out over the landscape of gnarled mountains spread out in front of them. 

“What do you think it means? That it’s been coming sooner?”

 

Davenport tilted his head to stare blankly up at the sky, envisioning how it was going to look once their time ran out on that planet. 

 

“I’m not sure, except that it means we have less time. And that we can’t depend on things working the same way for forever. It means every minute we have is precious, but we’re still unsure how to put our time to the best use.”

 

Lucretia looked away from the landscape and fixed her eyes instead on the floor of the deck, her face twisted in concern. 

“Is there anything in particular that you’re hoping for Merle to find out?” 

 

Davenport slowly shook his head. 

“I don’t know what our salvation will look like. I can only hope that something breaks in our favor soon. Because currently, we’re only closer to losing whatever this small chance we have is.” He closed his eyes and exhaled even slower than before.  

“Sometimes I wonder why we got saddled with this… opportunity? Responsibility? Whatever you would call it. How can we even tell if it actually means anything or if it’s just pure chance; an accident, even? Or is there something to be said in the fact that we specifically survived and continue to survive? Our original escape… the timing itself was nothing short of miraculous, when you think about it. But, it could just as well have been a coincidence and we are simply living out some strange anomaly that we’ll eventually stop living out.” Davenport stared out at nothing the entire time he spoke and didn’t look over at Lucretia until he stopped. And when he did look over at her, he saw the distress in her face, and felt embarrassed for causing her to feel so obviously awful. 

“I’m sorry; that’s pretty grim and probably not the greatest thing to hear. I should be encouraging, I -- I’m supposed to be looking out for the positive side of things. Otherwise I’m not helping us at all.” 

 

Lucretia tried to speak with confidence, even though she looked like she was shrinking as her posture weakened with the heaviness she felt. 

“No, I understand. It’s not easy staying positive. This is all very discouraging. I hope that we do make some sort of progress soon. Before we... before we lose even more.” 

 

Davenport bit his tongue and just nodded; he felt like it had been a good while since the last time he was able to say something that was actually helpful or positive. He just didn’t have it in him at the moment. He had been having trouble sleeping; he found himself frequently waking with a jolt at the tiniest of noises, feeling sure that the Hunger was there and that he needed to run to the helm. There were no guarantees anymore, consistency was out the window, and with those two facts, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to have a peaceful night’s rest again. 

 

***

 

Merle sat across from John, idly twirling a fallen pawn between his forefinger and thumb. There had been several moments of silence between them, John eyeing Merle skeptically and Merle spending more time than usual thinking over and choosing his words carefully. He was starting to get frustrated though; he was feeling the pressure from the crew and from their decreased time and John was being as unhelpful and vague as ever. Merle felt less and less like being careful and more and more like being blunt, just trying to finally figure out what the hell was up with this guy. 

 

“What makes you think you can just wipe out existence?” 

 

John was caught off guard by the abruptness of the inquiry that had been thrown at him out of the dead silence.

“Is that your question?”

 

“Nah, I’m just shootin’ the shit. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, I guess.” 

 

John thought for a moment before deciding in favor of continuing the conversation. 

“I don’t know that I would describe it that way. I don’t see myself as wiping existence out as much as I see myself bringing everything in on itself and becoming part of my growth. But, if you want to call it by your own terms, then I want to know what makes you think that existence  _ shouldn’t  _ be wiped out?” 

 

“It just shouldn’t,” Merle stated matter of factly, shrugging with his palms upward, signaling that his answer was not only right, but obvious.

 

“Yes, but I’m asking you  _ why,  _ Merle. If nothing exists, that means that no one exists to mourn for any loss. There’s not even anything to mourn  _ for. _ Everything is folded into one, and it’s not actually lost -- just changed. Rather than existing, I suppose that you could say that everything just… is.” 

 

Merle furrowed his brow in confused frustration. “You told me that you don’t exist outside of these meetings. How does that make you feel?”

 

John laughed a bit. 

“Merle. I  _ can’t  _ feel anything about it. Because I don’t exist outside of this space, as I told you.”

 

“Well, you do right now. How does it feel, knowing that you could be like this, talking to me, instead of just being a whole lot of nothing?” 

 

John put down the rook that he was about to move and set his hands on the table in front of him, lacing his fingers together.

“It couldn’t possibly begin to matter. Because there is no sensation of want or need or feeling or discomfort or loss or  _ anything. _ I will not feel any heaviness or sadness once I am back within what you are calling ‘a whole lot of nothing’. And if I have gone without existence and without feeling for as long as I have, and am able to be pulled out of that and still have no desire or need to change anything, what makes you think anyone else who has been enfolded feels any differently?”

 

Merle wrinkled his nose in disapproval. 

“I know I wouldn’t like it. I’d rather be able to play chess. Even if it’s with a jerk like you who keeps killing me.” 

 

John let out a single, stifled laugh. 

“Well, we’re just very different then, aren’t we Merle? But, we already knew that.” John reached over the chess board and swiftly moved his rook to the spot he had been eyeing. “It’s your turn.” 

 

***

 

“If we hurry, we can get there in a little less than an hour. Then, we can spend about an hour there, and make it back here with time to get…  _ enough  _ sleep before we absolutely have to get to work in the morning. Sound good, Bear?”

 

Barry was smiling and blushing, excited and nervous about sneaking off with Lup in the middle of the night. There had been more than one moment where he realized what a bad idea it sounded like on paper. Even though there hadn’t been any dangers there yet, that had never meant much before in the past. But, the others had safely gone to the hot springs several times… though they did so during the day and while in contact with the rest of the crew. It really wouldn’t be fair to everyone if something happened to them, and they both knew it but… it was nearing the end of the year and they had done so much work. They could afford to goof around  _ once.  _ And of course, Taako knew what was going on because there was no way Lup was going to risk him waking up to her not being there in case anything did happen. So, it wasn’t really  _ that  _ much like sneaking out.

 

They put on their robes and stole away into the night, holding hands and giggling like children getting away with something huge. Lup led Barry through the dark until they were a little bit away from the ship where he summoned a ball of light for them to navigate by. 

 

Once they had made it up the short mountain path to the alcove where the hot springs were hidden, Lup turned to Barry. They both had the hoods of their robes up as she lunged at him and kissed him, their hoods connecting and creating a sort of tent of red fabric that surrounded them. Surprised at first, he returned her affection and swooped his hands up underneath her hood to hold either side of her face and kiss her back. They separated and laughed and held onto each other as they closed in again. They were delaying and delighting in the delay, laughing nervously as they kissed all over each other’s faces. When they started to kiss in earnest, their noises of nervous glee fell silent as their pulses quickened and slowed in rapid turns. They ran fingers through hair and over ears and along necks, the steam of the springs moving around their bright red figures in the dark, night-filled alcove. Lup was about to lower her robe off of her shoulders, but something compelled her to reach over to Barry and push his off of his shoulders after tugging at the back of his hood, still kissing him as it fell away. His robe slunk halfway down his arms as he held onto her, so he lowered his arms and wriggled the robe the rest of the way off and it fell gracelessly to the ground. He then scooped his hands underneath her robe, never opening his eyes and never removing his lips from hers, and coaxed it back and down her arms and she allowed it to drop to the ground. She leaned away from him and smiled playfully before skipping a few steps backwards, laughing at the confusion on his face. She ran and jumped at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his back. He stumbled a bit before automatically placing his arms around her to hold her up and to balance himself. She used her position, being held to be a little taller than him, to pull in close and bury her face into his hair while kissing the top of his head. She felt a surge of unbound, playful energy and decided to switch from excitedly kissing the top of his head to giving him a noogie, taking advantage of the fact that his arms were busy holding her. He laughed and ducked his head away before walking near the edge of the hot spring, motioning in a way that implied that he was going to dunk her in. She squealed and gripped onto him tighter. 

 

“Don’t you dare! I’ll take you with me!” 

 

“Yeah, but what if I…” Barry adjusted an arm to scoop entirely around her, freeing the other so that he could exploit the one, small ticklish spot that he had found on Lup’s side by accident when they were cuddling a few nights before. She screeched as he tickled her in that one-inch space on the side of her rib and she clawed onto him even harder, resisting the urge to flail and instead nearly crushing him. Through jagged breath and uncontrollable laughter, she sputtered out the word ‘okay!’ over and over until he stopped a short second after.

 

Her laughter died down as she panted. “Okay, okay!” Lup regained her breath. “Truce?” She loosened her death grip on Barry and jumped to the ground. 

 

Barry smiled and looked down, his entire face red. 

“Yeah.Truce.” 

 

Lup grabbed his hand to shake it, but instead pulled him to her and quickly kissed him. She leaned back and looked from Barry to the hazy steaming hot spring next to them. She stepped away and blushed wildly even as she confidently and quickly stripped down to her undergarments before hopping in, not looking up to see Barry’s reaction. And Barry’s reaction was to look away, to give her privacy even though they were both about to get into a hot spring together in stages of undress. Lup also glanced away shyly as Barry undressed most of the way before slipping into the water next to her. With arms around each other, melting in the steaming water, she eventually leaned more and more into him as she ran her hand along the hair on his chest. She felt herself almost falling asleep in the crook of his arm as he held her close and settled his head on top of hers. 

...

When they were working earlier that day, Barry and Lup talked about what they hoped might eventually come from Merle’s conversations with John. 

 

“I just wanna know more about the relationship between the Hunger and the light.” Lup tapped the eraser end of a pencil against the desk in front of her. “All we know is that it wants it, and that it only successfully takes the plane when the light is left there -- at least as far as what we’re able to see before we bounce on out.”

 

While Lup tapped her pencil, Barry was caught in anxiously drumming his fingers against the desk. Their little nervous movements accidentally lined up, creating a sort of rhythmic percussive backdrop to their troubled thoughts. Barry quieted his fingers after a moment and sighed deeply before speaking.

 

“Yeah, that would be nice to know. Nice to know anything, really. Why it’s attracted to the light, how it finds the light, why it takes a year, why it’s taking less than a year now, why we always end up in whatever plane the light is landing in, just a few days before it lands… it’s impossible that this could all be happening by coincidence. But then, what in the hell is it that’s making it all happen?” Barry’s eyes glazed over as his thoughts began to spiral and Lup looked up from tapping her pencil and carefully watched his expression as he continued to speak. 

 

“Is it all even part of some actual design, or did we just get sucked into some strange, cyclical situation that is going to continue forever? Just us, the Hunger, the light. And eternity. And I mean -- there is no shortage of eternity. It can’t even be possible for the Hunger to consume everything one day, there’s just… the universe is endless. It won’t ever be able to destroy all of reality. Just a lot of stages of realities, different sections of it. But, if it’s perpetually becoming larger and stronger… and if we continue to end up with less and less time until we’re out of it completely, then what? Then it’s just the Hunger and the light for eternity? Or is there anyone else out there, doing the same thing that we’re doing? Are there infinite versions of us or others doing this same thing?” Barry hung his head and buried his face in his hands, looking defeated. “What do we even know… we might actually know less than nothing.”

 

Lup felt the nosedive they were headed for if the conversation continued. They were all worthwhile points and legitimate questions, but ultimately they were not doing them any good, only creating more questions. She dropped her pencil on the desk and leaned towards Barry so that she could put a hand on his shoulder.

“We can spin our wheels on this topic all day long, but in the end, we just need to do what we can and hope that Merle can bring us back something helpful. Or maybe somehow, with his weird, charming little ways, he can convince this fucko of… I don’t know,  _ something  _ that might change  _ anything.  _ As long as it isn’t a change that puts us in a worse situation, any change at all could be good. Something needs to shake loose, to happen eventually. I hope.” 

 

Barry woke up from his spiraling a little bit, lifting his head and looking at Lup as he spoke. 

“At what point do you think we’ll crack though, y’know? Can we really do this forever? It’s been decades and it’s felt like so long; at least for me I guess, being human… I’m sure Magnus and Lucretia are feeling that, too. But what if this is nothing? What if this is absolutely nothing compared to how long it  _ will _ go on for? What if we’re facing hundreds of years? Thousands? Do you think we’ll ever just... stop being able to handle it?”

 

Lup shook her head, determined to put an end to the string of upsetting questions.

“That’s a dark line of thought. And it doesn’t help. And we won’t get there. Besides…” Lup got up out of her chair and flopped herself down on Barry’s lap, “a thousand years of this is just a thousand years of us, right? Or, are you going to stop being able to handle  _ me?” _

 

Barry laughed and circled his arms around her waist, laying his head against her as she gathered him up her arms. “I won’t ever stop handling you…” Barry flinched as he trailed off. “U-uh. Wow, that came out weird -- I-I’m sorr-”

 

“Shh, shh, it’s fine.” And she silenced him with her lips on his. 

 

He relaxed as they kissed. He sometimes still had a hard time accepting the things that came out of his mouth; all of the things that for decades he felt that he should never even think about, let alone say out loud. There was so much rewiring to be done still, for both of them. But, they were patient and loving with each other, with their awkward fumbling and hesitations and shy apologies. After all, they had time. All the time they needed to get it right.

 

…

 

In the hot spring, Lup concentrated on the feeling of Barry’s arm around her, of her wet hair and her face pressed against his chest. She felt the steam on her face and Barry’s slow, relaxed breathing keeping her anchored in the moment. She could easily spend a thousand years with him, more, as long as they got to have at least a few moments like that one in between the chaos and darkness now and again. 

 

***

 

As the pieces on the chessboard dwindled, Merle looked over at the growing pile of ones that were conquered.

“What does it feel like to have -- everything that there is in you? And -- how are they? What happens to them?” 

 

John didn’t take his eyes off of the board as he contemplated his next move. 

“Feeling is a concept, easy to undo; it’s not real. So, it is hard to tell you what you want to know, Merle.”

 

“Then that can’t be my question if you’re not going to answer it.” 

John looked up and made deliberate eye contact with Merle. 

 

“That’s fair. What else, then?” 

 

“I don’t know. I wish you could just maybe tell me more about you. I rattle on plenty about stuff to you, why don’t you just tell me what your deal is a little bit more. Why you are the way you are, what your whole goal here is.”

 

John thought that he had told Merle enough about his goals in their earlier meetings, already. But obviously there was something that he had found… unsatisfactory in the answers. He wasn’t sure where it had come from, but John was starting to feel a desire to be understood.

“Like I’ve told you before, Merle, I want to grow larger than the cruel laws that have been assigned to us without our will, without our knowing it. I am an answer. An answer to a problem. The eternal complication of existence, the problem of being alone… nothing is truly together, except for in here. Everything is so… lonely in this universe, Merle. An ant is lonely, a dog is lonely, a human is as lonely as the planet that they all crawl on together, as lonely as an entire plane floating in an expanse of further and further empty spaces of loneliness. Even parasites are lonely. And that’s as close as you can be; you can physically be under and within another being’s skin and still not really be close at all. Even more so in that situation, you’re at odds.

One of those incredibly cruel limitations that I talked to you about before, Merle, is the fact that everyone is able to feel that loneliness. Able to feel that absence and have no way of truly filling it. Everyone and everything contains multitudes, but also contains a void that can never be filled. Why would such a limitation be made? Why would everything that exists be given this flaw? 

Everything contains multitudes within, and yet satisfaction is eternally out of reach. The void that has been created in every consciousness that exists is too large for multitudes to matter. In here, though -- it matters. No one and nothing is alone. Why would you want anything else? You know, you don’t even really know what happens when I take a plane, when I absorb its bonds. You’re all trying to stop me, but what if what I’m doing is good and you simply don’t understand? There’s no one in here wanting to escape, screaming to leave. It’s a new type of satisfaction, a real one, a sense of completion  _ for once. _ Because -- things are complete in here. Don’t you want to be complete Merle? To be one with everything, with everyone?” 

 

Merle felt a chill run up his spine.

“Is that your question?” 

 

John tapped his fingers against the table. 

“It is. I want to know why you and the people you are with are unwilling to allow me to continue to do what I am meant to do.” 

 

Merle huffed. 

“Well, John. We’re trying to stop you because we don’t agree with your sentiments. I guess I don’t know any of what you’re talking about because I’m not lonely, and neither are the people I’m with. Maybe you’re projecting your own issues onto everyone else.” 

  
  


John laughed, but it was hollow, unsettling. 

 

“But, I  _ am  _ everyone, Merle. Or, at least everyone that I’ve collected so far. And they  _ are  _ lonely. Or rather, they were, before the concept of loneliness was taken from them, before that feeling was eradicated from being able to be felt. Now, no one is lonely and everything is at peace. Isn’t that a good thing?” 

  
  


“None of that is your job to determine or fix, though. Ya gotta let folks figure that kind of stuff out on their own!”

  
  


John laid his hands flat on the table in front of him and stared at Merle intently.

“Really, Merle? You think everyone should just be left to their own devices? Their own dissatisfaction? Aren’t you supposed to be a healer? I posit again, what if this is good, what I’m doing? What if I’m more of a healer than you are?” 

  
  


Merle snorted. “What if? Can you prove it?” 

  
  


“Is that  _ your  _ question?” John narrowed his eyes.

  
  


“If it’s one that you can answer, then yeah.” 

  
  


John was silent for a moment. 

 

“If our definitions for what is good and what constitutes as healing are different, then we’re already at an impasse before we even begin. So no; I would predict that I can’t prove any of that to you by  _ your  _ terms.” 

  
  


“Okay. Sure.”

 

There was a prolonged silence as Merle moved a pawn that John was unable to successfully prevent from making its way to his end of the board. He had gotten distracted; in his frenzied defense of his position, he lost focus of his defense on the board. Merle looked up at John.

  
  


“Guess I’ll be replacing my queen, then. And I think that’ll be game, since your king is pinned in the corner on her diagonal there.” 

  
  


As soon as the words were out of Merle’s mouth, John raised his hand and brought it swiftly down. Merle felt the hot, sharp pain of his body being burnt up, as he had so many times before. And then he was back on board the ship, none the wiser. Except, he did know one thing… John owed him  _ two  _ questions on their next visit. 

 


	50. Ascendancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Fifty

  
  
  
  


The crew was complete once again and all in their set places after breaking through the barrier between planes. Once they were able to think and move, they closed in around Merle to welcome him back. They planned on giving him some space before plying him with questions about how things went with John, but Merle felt ready to talk before Davenport had even found a place to land the Starblaster. 

 

“This time I was mostly trying to figure out what he wants. He really just thinks that he’s got everything figured out and that what he’s doing is right. He doesn’t consider himself a villain.”

 

Taako hissed a flippant ‘tch’ noise through his teeth.

“Yeah, but who does, really? Everyone always thinks their way is the best way. When arrogant assholes like that think that they know what’s best for  _ everyone  _ and take it all upon themselves no matter what others want… that’s where things become a problem.” 

 

Merle sighed and nodded. 

“One thing I can tell you about John though… he  _ really  _ isn’t happy about us.”

 

Lup’s eyes widened and she looked down at Merle. 

“Shit, Merle. That can only mean that we’re a potential threat to him. Meaning that there must be a way for us to stop him. Or it. Whatever.” 

 

“I sure hope so, sis. Because I gotta admit, I’m starting to wear thin on patience with him.”

 

Taako set a hand on his hip and leaned away a bit to more fully look Merle over.

“Merle? Losing patience? I mean, I don’t know that I would peg your main quality as patience - it’s more like stubbornness, or tenacity to be generous - but I didn’t think that talking to someone and trying to convince them of stuff would ever be something you would want to stop doing.” 

 

Merle raised his hands and shrugged.

“Yeah, yeah, well. I just don’t see much of anything happening there. And he sure does kill me an awful lot.”

 

Taako wrinkled up his nose at the mention of Merle’s constant deaths at the hands of John.

“Yeah that’s honestly kind of weird. Dude chills and talks and plays games with you and then just… gets sick of it at some point and has to kill you. But is totally down to chill again the next year? Pretty hot and cold, that guy. Love how he pretends to be all level and logical, from what you’ve told us.” 

 

“Well whatever his deal is,” Lup flipped a bit of her hair out of her face, “he’s not happy about us. So. If we can’t do anything else in the meantime... let’s work on making him fucking furious.” 

 

***

 

As Davenport brought them in closer to the central planet of the system’s material plane, they saw that the world that would be their home that year was larger than most of the ones that had come before. Their search that year was going to be especially difficult if they didn’t get the chance to see the light as it fell. The forests were massive, covering most of the world, and from above they looked like large, globular clumps. There were plateaus scattered about between the forests, and after seeing one below them that looked like it had a small river winding around its base, Davenport started to bring them down to land. He parked the ship atop the tall tableland that rose straight up from the green ground below; he hoped that they would be safe up there, and that they might get a better view of the sky for the next few days. Once they realized what they were sitting on top of, though, they felt uneasy. 

 

The scale made it difficult to tell; it was so large that it was reminiscent of something else entirely. But, after closer examination of the ground that they were on when they stepped out of the ship, they found out that they hadn’t landed on a flat plateau, but on top of a tree stump, one that spanned about a mile in each direction. And all of the others that they saw… must have been the same thing. Silently, they imagined what it could have been that had cut such massive trees down so cleanly. If there was -- something there on that planet that was capable of felling trees that size, sitting high above the ground and out in the open was probably the most dangerous position to be in. When they looked for a place to land lower on the ground, Davenport set them down near one of the domed forests. That was when they noticed the second strange thing about the planet. What they were walking up to as they left the ship wasn’t a forest at all; it was an individual tree. Underneath the thick mound of green, there was a single trunk supporting piles upon piles of dark green leaves so dense that they couldn’t even be sure if there were branches anywhere within the verdant mass. They were severely out of proportion from what they were used to with most trees; they were still very tall, but compared to the width of the trunk, they were incredibly stout. It was as if a tree with a trunk twenty feet around only came up to your waist, but then multiplied a hundred times over. So, their vision of what things might inhabit the planet changed again -- the trees that were alive weren’t much taller than the stumps, so they weren’t unthinkably tall trees that had been cut down after all. Just impossibly wide and sprawling. And maybe… the way they looked from underneath, they very well could have simply not had any substantial branches. Maybe the stumps were merely dead ones and they were flat on top once the globe of thicketed leaves died away. 

  
  
  


They ended up making contact with inhabitants of the domed trees; a colony of persons who were akin to alien versions of gnomes. Lightly metallic, dewey skin, narrow vertical pupils, and long lifeless tails that trailed along the ground were the most noticeable features that set them apart.They spoke in a sort of chittering static, but the noises were distinct enough that they were sure they could potentially learn some of the language. Lup, Taako and Barry took point on deciphering and learning what they could. They were welcomed into the homes of the gnomes; the hollowed out insides of the tree that they had first approached. The single tree was large enough to hold homes for dozens of families as well as sprawling communal areas used for crafting or feasting together, though there were more inhabited trees nearby as well. 

 

It wasn’t long before Taako, Barry and Lup had a good handful of words in their arsenal and were able to start making out some of what the gnomish people seemed very intent on telling them. The messages that they were beginning to understand sounded more and more like warnings… about something flying, about something underground, about an imminent arrival. The population there was small, and there was  _ something  _ that had been keeping it that way. They all lived in fear, and had for a very long time. But, what the three of them were able to glean from the bits and pieces of the language that they had learned stopped there, and they couldn’t quite figure out  _ what  _ it was that was coming.

  
  


One day, about three months into their year, Lup, Barry and Taako sat inside one of the tree domes, continuing their work in understanding the local language. And as they did so, they felt the first of what would be many quakes. When the floor beneath them shook and the walls of the inside of the tree groaned, they saw the mounting fear in the eyes of their hosts. Despite all of their work so far, they were still none the wiser when it came to exactly  _ what  _ it was that they were facing, or when it would be there. 

  
  


***

 

Lup and Barry were taking a few hours to themselves after weeks of nonstop work between their regular projects in the lab, learning the local language, and mapping their area as they searched for signs of the light. They went on a hike, one that would only be able to cover the span of two trees before they circled back, just for fun. It was something new; they had always felt that they had to have a reason before. But then, they were walking through their world for the year, holding hands, with nothing on their minds except for each other. 

The pale orange sun set and small rays of light reached out all around them, refracting off of the dew on the rolling carpets of grass that filled the spaces in between the trees and catching the light evening mist in their beams. Lup had the sudden urge to do something other than walk. She stopped and turned to Barry and kissed him while grabbing at the neck of his robe from either side and pulling him to the ground with her.  

He tumbled over with her as she brought him down and laid herself out on the grass. He ended up hovering over her, his hands planted on the ground on either side of her shoulders, smiling and wanting to lower that little bit closer to kiss her, but instead just looking at her, at her smile, at the light on the wet grass glittering all around her. In his hesitation, she raised her head from the ground and lightly kissed him. And then, she grabbed at his robe and firmly pulled him close as she reached for his lips to do more than just brush against them. He fell further towards her and was only barely holding himself up by the forearms and elbows as he leaned into her pull. He could feel her breathing between him and the ground as their lips connected and moved so agonizingly slow against each other.

They had been savoring the fact that they were able to look at each other, touch each other, hold each other, kiss each other -- so much so that they had yet to broach anything beyond that. In between their work, they spoke at length about all of the time they had spent over the years loving the other. Whenever they had a couple hours at their disposal, they used that time to reminisce over decades worth of little actions and words that they had noticed about one another, things that had made them fall more and more in love. They told each other about every moment they had shared that had almost tipped the balance in the past, every moment that made them feel so full of love that their walls almost broke. With all of their hard, neverending work, it was sometimes difficult to fit in time to leisurely talk at length while holding each other and showering each other with affection. And while time in between everything was sometimes hard to find, they knew that they had so much time in front of them, and for the moment they were happy enough just to feel each other’s forms, to run their fingers along each other, to be so close, to kiss. There would be time for more to come later. Just like their love, there would be a time where it would be perfect, and they would know. 

As they kissed, the felt a quake rolling through the ground underneath them. They knew that was a bad sign, but they couldn’t help but laugh at the timing, the way that the ground below them moved at the height of the euphoria in their physical closeness. They got up and ran back to the ship.

 

***

 

Days later, there was another quake… but it was exponentially worse, causing booming, cracking sounds to ring out all around them. The rumbling and shaking continued and didn’t stop, and Davenport ran to the helm of the ship, at once ready to make a quick exit. The rest of the crew kept a close watch outside and saw as the ground underneath them started to break; but rather than caving in, it was pushing upwards. They heard the rushing sound of the bond engine starting up and felt the lurch of the ship as Davenport started to take them out. Then, everything happened too fast to keep track of. 

  
  


Barry and Lup were on the deck when the ship started to take off, and they could see the scene playing out underneath them as they held themselves steady against the railing. Cracking through the ground below, there rose something sickly pale yellow topped with large fleshy fronds that were lined with breathing nodes. It pushed through plates of crumbling rock and dirt, a behemoth-sized being breaking its way out of the ground and rising towards them as Davenport accelerated desperately. Then, they saw a beak underneath the fronds; bony and off-white and stained with dark red splotches. The beak was lined with outwardly splaying teeth and a spined ridge ran up the center of the beak and towards a vaguely bird-like face with gaping holes for eyes, peach and pink-burnt skin pulled tight over its rough skull. The neck elongated more and more as it unfurled itself from the ground, and they could see the world continue to crack apart as what was surely going to be a monstrously huge body began its emergence from underground. The long neck stretched and the beak reached up, high enough to graze the underside of the ship, even as Davenport stressed the engine from taking them out as fast as possible. They only barely avoided being snapped up inside of the thing’s mouth as the ship slowed for a moment, rocking and tilting violently from the disruption of the beak tapping the underside of the silver hull. Barry and Lup were thrown from the railing and fell onto the deck. As soon as Davenport righted the ship, they scrambled for the door and got themselves inside.

 

From the windows, they all watched as the body of the thing freed itself and shook off some of the dirt that caked its body, revealing a form that was made of layers upon layers of stiff, translucent spikes laying flat against it. They looked like impossibly large hairs made of aging plastic, making up a sharp and dense sort of fur that didn’t quite hide the raw pink of its skin underneath. The spines along the beak and head and the yellowed, transparent spikes that covered it, all dimly flashed from within, flickering in a prismatic discordant pulsating light. Bony, scaled legs jerked and convulsed as they raised the spiny, sallow body from the ground and, once it was mostly freed, it extended its neck over the trees and seemed to be searching for something in the mats of leaves. Then, hovering over one green leafy dome, it pecked inside, splitting the tree apart in the process. Once it moved its head away from the tree, it had something bright in its mouth and appeared to be swallowing it. They could see as they flew high above the gigantic creature that there was a strong glow emanating through the thin pink skin that stretched web-like over the sunken chest of the thing. It was the light.

 

_ It was the light.  _

 

And they were going to get it. 

 

…

 

Davenport got them safely away from the endlessly extending neck of the mountainous bird, pulling back enough to be out of its reach while still being able to get a good look at it once it had fully extracted itself from the ground, shards of great rock clattering all around it as it staggered through its first few steps out onto the world. It towered far above the trees, and once it got its footing and had shaken the last bit of rock and dirt from off of its back, a shattering scream tore loose from its opened beak lined with endless rows of teeth, and they could feel the tremors of its voice from inside of the ship. Taako and Lup had made their way to standing just outside of the door to the helm where Davenport’s steady hand kept the ship circling far above danger. 

 

Leaning into the cockpit and peering out the window, Lup carefully watched.

“It doesn’t seem like it can fly…” 

 

Taako nervously ran the nail of his forefinger over the pad of his thumb repeatedly. 

“It would’ve by now if it could, right?” 

 

“Can’t be sure of anything.” Davenport chewed at the inside of his lip as he unblinkingly stared out at the world below them, circling the ship, laser-focused on keeping them safe. 

 

Taako dropped his hand and forced himself to stop his nervous tic.

“Well. What do we gotta do except blow this fucker up and take the light from it?” 

 

Without changing his gaze and with his voice flat, Davenport responded to Taako.

“We’ve got to live to see tomorrow.” 

 

“I mean,  yeah, obvs.” Taako crossed his arms and looked down at the floor. Lup put an arm around him. 

 

“Let’s go check on everyone.”

 

...

 

The rest of the crew had gathered out on the deck to survey the scene below. Lucretia wrote furiously in her journal, capturing the details of the strange alien monster that was stomping through the forest, cracking open the ground beneath it and crashing through the trees, filling the once peaceful and quiet world with violent noise. 

 

“Those poor trees.” Merle shook his head.

 

“I hope everyone is okay down there.” Magnus gripped the railing, his knuckles white, upset that he wasn’t on the ground, helping -- though what could he possibly even do from the ground except get crushed? He could at least maybe help people with evacuating… something, anything. But he was stuck, unable to do anything but watch safely from above. 

 

Barry stared down at the top of the shining head of the monstrosity, flashing in a rainbow of colors from within the dusty, yellowing quills. 

They needed to get the light. He was feeling positive that year about working with it, about figuring it out, figuring out  _ something.  _ The thing below them was horrifying; it had just erupted through miles of ground and was crushing everything below them with thunderous noise and a hollow screeching that soared through its sickening body like sharp, cursed winds -- but, he knew that they could bring it down together, save the people living in the trees, retrieve the light. They were getting better at that kind of thing every year, after all. And there was nothing that he believed in more than in them and their amazing ability to survive anything. 

  
  
  


The sky grew dark above them and there was a sudden cacophonous noise assaulting their ears. A black and grey shuddering cloud was forming above them, and as it descended, they saw that it was formed from hundreds of birds, all screaming in different pitches, frantically flapping and hitting against each other as they huddled in their dense formation. The cloud of birds was falling all around them, but they paid little attention to the ship or the crew and instead straightened their bodies, turning downwards to dive through the air, zooming towards the head of the monster. Circling it for a brief second, they started to rush at it in waves, weaving patterns around its neck just below the head. It snapped at them, catching some, but was too slow and massive to stop the speeding puffs of black as they moved close across its neck. As the crew saw lines of blood starting to form, it became obvious at once that they were severing its head off. 

 

They didn’t know what to do except watch in confusion and horror as the beast caught occasional mouthfuls of birds, reducing them to pulp in its jaws while, unphased, the rest of the cloud continued to attack it until they had etched deep wounds fully around its neck. Coordinating with fierce intention, they spiraled up and away from its grasping jaws and settled on the top of its head, digging claws into its skin or grabbing onto the node-tipped fronds, and then rising, flying away, trying to pull the head off. The skin started to sag off of the head as they stretched it upward and the mouth widened as the top and lower parts of the head began to separate from each other, the wounds around the neck apparently not being deep enough for it to rip off from that point. 

 

From their vantage point, they could see into the widening open mouth of the creature — behind the rows of teeth there was another, smaller and less developed bird skull, encased in lacy webs. As the birds worked harder to tear away the head, the smaller skull inside started to grow and the webbing tunneled in on itself, creating a woolen appendage that moved on its own and pushed against the inside of the outer skull. It worked along with the pulling of the other birds to push away the top of the head, allowing it to be torn off, while the bottom jaw wrinkled and  withered and sank around its neck, forming a fleshy and bony ruff, while the inner skull continued to expand, rapidly forming a new head. One group of birds left with the upper half of the original head, satisfied with the outcome, but many more  remained, attacking the new head. As the birds tore away pieces, the crew looked down and they were able to see gaps in between where the original head had been and the places where the new head hadn’t fully filled in around the inner tunnel of its neck. And lined down the neck were throbbing rows of bright red, fleshy, writhing sacs. After the other head was mostly ripped away, small groups of birds left with chunks of what apparently was nothing more than a food source for them. With the birds clearing away more and more bits of flesh, the crew had a better view inside the tunnel of the neck. The red blistering spheres twitched, and a couple of the ones closest to the top burst open, fresh blood spraying out, and there was some sort of indistinguishable mass wriggling out of the ruined and deflated blisters. The mass grew stiff and whitened in the sun, forming a threaded body, turning into more webbing that expanded into bone that grew into the start of yet another head. Hordes of birds dove into the throat before the new head could form any more and cover the red sacs, and they ate away and grabbed up as much of the pulpy flesh as they could. They watched and saw that from the bloody globes, the birds were tearing into what looked like embryos; pink-skinned, wet and wrinkled bodies with dark, bulging eyes, lying saturated inside of the fluid sacs.

 

The last of the birds left with everything that they could carry that they had torn away from the thing’s head. The body continued to walk without the head, and they could see within the stub of its neck that there were more of the bright red pods lining the inside of the throat all the way down, a breathing tunnel of jeweld fruits, all of them pulsing and swelling, threatening to grow into a new head. They were silent for a moment as they continued to try and process everything that had just happened.

 

Magnus looked down, wild eyed and panicking over the citizens of the world below. 

“That thing is — it’s just going to keep growing its head back...”

 

“Yeah, well -- I guess we have to get rid of all of them at once, don’t we?” Lup was grinning intensely as she gripped the railing, looking down at the beast, and it made Barry’s heart stop. Gods, she was fucking amazing. He knew the look meant that she had something daring and terrifying planned. And sure enough, she turned her eyes on him and narrowed them while still smiling deviously, and she curled a finger, motioning for him to follow her. Pulled like a magnet to her, he started moving before he even realized it and went after her, unblinking, breathless, in love with the absolutely amazing woman in front of him.

 

After talking to Davenport, Barry found himself next to the hatch with Lup who had quickly outfitted herself in a harness and was clicking the cable into place, preparing to drop out. 

 

“Ready to man the crank and get me outta there fast?”

 

Barry just nodded, excited, afraid, but trusting in Lup. 

 

She gave Barry a small wave and a smile before diving out of the hatch. He watched as she plummeted towards the behemoth below. 

  
  
  


Lup felt the wind whipping her hair behind her and she smiled uncontrollably as her eyes stung and watered with the forceful air pushing against her. With her arms flat at her side, she moved fast through the sky, feeling her heart and her body react the way that bodies do when they’re falling, no matter where your mind is at or how immortal you are. Her eyes widened despite the force of the wind beating against her face and she felt an immense swelling in her heart. Above her was her family, her love, people that she trusted. And that was exactly why she was able to fall the way that she was, without worry, without doubt. And below her was something to be eradicated, something to be destroyed in order to keep others safe, and then… there was the light. And she knew her and Barry were getting better and smarter and they were going to get it, they were going to crack something soon. 

The love and hope and trust and assuredness growing in her made her feel like she was floating more than falling, and as her smile grew so wide that she couldn’t keep her teeth from showing, she pushed an arm out in front of her against the force of the wind. She was nearing the thing and she could see down its exposed throat, glowing and beating from the inside inharmoniously, each bloody kernel with its own unique set of movements, off-tempo from the others. She could see things twitching inside of the blood sacs as she closed in and she flinched; the closer she got to it, the more she could feel the evil wafting off of it. The details were sickening; the yellowed and cracking spines and hairs, the raw skin, the curtain of gristle and bone hanging around its neck from the first head. As she drew closer, she began to hear the sounds of hundreds of muffled, pained, animalistic screams. The massiveness of it was so much more obvious from where she was… but she needed to get close, closer -- so that she could burn it up from the inside out. 

 

With her hand out in front of her, her eyes were wide and her heart was racing, not with fear but with anticipation. She felt swept over with impatience, wanting to see what her magic could do to something so formidable. Because, she knew that however formidable it was, she was moreso. And being the size that she was compared to its massiveness... she somehow only felt all the more powerful.

 

Her hand was shaking against the wind and trembling with the power that she was channeling into her fingers. The skin under her fingernails was glowing and heating up under her chipped nail polish. The pain gathering in her hand was delicious in a way; the more pain there was, the more heat, and the more heat, the more fire she was going to be able to release all at once. It was going to be  _ glorious.  _

 

From the ship, they all saw her falling slowly, looking like a pin dropping in comparison to the giant thing. Then there was a flicker, a pop of warm brightness, a crackling shock of whipping arcs of light that flashed in and out quickly. Then, a small cloud of deep red fire formed before a flood was unleashed and a huge plume of flame fell in slow motion from the dot that Lup had become, rolling in waves down at the throat of the bird. It billowed and became edged with black as each wave of fire curved in on itself, extinguishing at the invisible edges of the cone that it was controlled into.

 

Lup’s eyes were filled with smoke and with the wind and the backdraft of heat that she was plummeting straight into. She kept her eyes wide open nonetheless, feeling the impact of hot smoke hitting her skin and the ash gathering in her hair, turning it black. She saw her hand blackening in front of her, but she didn’t let up. Her fingers were becoming so burnt that they were beyond the pain, well on their way to losing feeling in them entirely -- but she didn’t let up. She was falling into the center of her own cone of fire, her body moving faster through the air than her flames, but she still did not let up. She could hear and smell something burning, and she knew that she was connecting with her target, even though she couldn’t see it through the wall of fire. And then she felt something else hit her in the face, something wet and thick. The cloud of fire was cleared in front of her and she was able to see through the center, just enough to see the waves of red liquid rushing at her.

 

From the ship, they saw the neck of the thing consumed by Lup’s flame and saw the red buds swell and pop and explode in violent plumes of blood; the misty parts evaporating and the more substantial streams thickening into a blackened, quickly coagulating fountain. They lost sight of Lup in the dueling clouds of flame rushing down and blood gushing upward. The neck began to wither as it was emptied of blood and it wobbled before slowly falling, looking as though it had been deflated, emptied. Like a limp sock it fell to the side of the body and then convulsed, gobs of dark blood still spilling from it and flooding one of the huge indentations underneath it from its last massive, destructive step, making a lake of blood in the landscape. The legs wavered from side to side before the knees buckled underneath it and the body collapsed to the ground with a world shattering noise. 

 

Barry panicked as he lost sight of Lup in the streams of fire and blood. But then he noticed that the cable was unspooling slower -- she had slowed her decent with the force of her flame pushing her back. He slowly applied opposing force to the cable spool so that she wouldn’t snap back up, and met perfectly against the momentum of her own slowing descent, until the rope was still. He waited, waited to see her, waited to feel a pull on the rope, for any signal she would be able to give him. He waited and he trusted her, trusted that she was alive and fine. There was a widening cloud below from where the two opposing streams had met each other. The smoke reeking of burnt up blood and flesh wafted up into the ship through the hatch from the gore below. He waited breathlessly, not even blinking as he watched for her, ignoring the smoke choking him and burning his eyes. 

 

And then he felt a deliberate couple of pulls on the cable as he held onto it. His heart soared and his face lifted in a relieved smile as he quickly turned  to the handle of the spool and began to reel her up. Magnus had ran into the room at some point without Barry noticing and he grabbed the crank from Barry and nodded to the hatch. Barry smiled gratefully as he quickly stepped to the opening and leaned over. He saw Lup’s ecstatic face, blackened with smoke and dripping with thick dark blood, eyes red and hair unrecognizable, drawing closer to him. He reached out to her and she grabbed onto him once she was underneath the mouth of the hatch, making black fingerprints on Barry’s arm. He held onto her tight and drew her towards himself as she helped to pull herself into the ship. Without hesitation, as soon as she had a foot planted on the edge of the hatch, she propelled herself towards Barry, tackling him, and together they stumbled back to the wall behind him, her lips on his before both of her feet had even hit the floor of the ship, and she held onto him tight, shaking with adrenaline and triumph. She covered him in soot and blood and he didn’t care as he dragged his hands along her back and then circling her waist and then to her hair and then to cradle each side of her face as, eyes closed, he didn’t stop kissing her. She was falling against him against the wall with her hands going through his hair wildly, moving down to hold either side of his face back, gripping onto his shoulders, balancing her dizzy and adrenaline wrecked body. 

 

Taako came running into the hatch room after having lost sight of Lup from the deck once she was pulled up under the ship. Needing to make sure that she was in one piece still, he barged into the room holding his breath. Then, seeing her caked in filth pressed against Barry, blackening every inch of his clothes and skin and leaving crispy lip marks all over his face, Taako grimaced.

 

“Ew.” 

 

Magnus laughed heartily and threw an arm around Taako’s shoulders and left for the common room with him, giving Barry and Lup their moment. 

 

…

 

Back in the common room, Taako and Lucretia got to grabbing things for Lup to help her clean off and Merle took her hands and healed them up as much as he could for her. She relaxed and exhaled slowly as she let go of some of the pain. 

 

“Thank you, the feeling was starting to come back a bit and it was  _ not  _ feeling nice.”

Lup leaned over and hugged Merle. He pat her on the back as she did but made a face. 

 

“I’m glad you’re safe, but you  _ really  _ don’t smell great right now.” 

  
  


***

 

On the ground, Taako, Magnus and Merle left to retrieve the light from the body of the fallen monstrosity. But, upon arriving at its body, they saw movement within the base of the neck. And then heard muffled screeching. They stopped and assumed a fighting stance, readying themselves for whatever very likely horrifying thing that was about to happen. From under the burnt skin, several creatures fought their way out, and suddenly they found themselves being rushed at by a handful of embryonic birds, sightless, featherless, stumbling along on underdeveloped legs, each standing twice as tall as Magnus. As wobbly and vulnerable as the creatures were in some ways, they were sure to notice the rows of sharp teeth, the hooked claws at the ends of the naked wings, the feet ending in talons made for evisceration. The three of them looked to one another and smiled, knowing that it was their turn for a little victory. Feeling confident and unafraid, trusting in each other, they stepped forward to meet the approaching threat. The first to reach them was quickly felled by a single blow from Magnus, a fatal slash across the weak chest. Another was taken out from a distance by two gleaming streaks of light, magic missiles from Taako. A pair were on them at the same time and while Magnus and Taako were able to support each other to kill one before it could do any damage, another got in a swipe across Magnus’s face. Merle was on top of healing him and then followed with a spell that bolstered his strength, causing him to send the next bird flying in two pieces as he tore through its neck and chest with a single swing of his sword. Their time fighting was brief, but intense, and they moved together like a well-oiled machine. They stood open-mouthed and wide eyed at the scene of their win set out in front of them. There was barely a scratch left on Magnus, some blood splatter on Taako’s robe, and Merle was in basically the same condition as he was when they set out. It felt… easy. They barely even had the chance to feel tense or afraid. They shared a moment together of clamorous support, pats on the back and raucous, celebratory laughter. They ran together, filled with adrenaline and barely worn out from their fight, and retrieved the light from within the dead beast. 

 

***

 

Eventually, the crew returned to the gnomes in the trees and they were received by them with open arms. They still didn’t understand them all that much, but they were able to gather that they had rid something from the world for them that they thought they would never be free of. The gnomes wept and smiled and were generally incredulous; whatever the cyclical nature of the creature was, they never thought it would be broken, never thought that the cycle of their destruction, of losing family and home, would ever cease. They fell to pieces around the crew and they could tell from their reactions that life was going to be different for them from then on. They celebrated and ate with the gnomes and were doted on, held onto, cried onto, and were offered everything that the gnomes had to give. 

 

As everyone was being lavished with praise as well as could be communicated to them by the gnomes and their tittering voices, Lup grabbed Barry’s hand and they snuck away from the large inner tree room where everyone was celebrating. Laughing to themselves as they made their way down a dark corridor, they stopped halfway down to kiss each other against a wall before running outside. Barry stopped as they stood under the moonlight and he caught sight of Lup’s shining eyes and couldn’t not look at her. He took both of her hands and, seeing her entire body drenched in moonlight and the backdrop of flourishing treetops, he thought of something.

 

“Hey, I’ve got an idea… want to go back to the ship really quick?” 

 

“Yeah, whatever you want! I just want to be with you right now.” 

 

Barry’s heart grew light and he had to struggle to not get lost in looking at her. He held on to her hand and rushed towards the ship.

…

 

“So, everyone’s at the center tree home right now, right?”

 

“Mmhmm, and what does that mean for us, Bear?” 

 

“Oh, uh- there’s that one nearby that’s flat on top… you know, aside from the one we’re on.” 

 

“Yes, and?” Lup loved seeing the mounting excitement in Barry’s face, obviously all at once nervous and pleased about presenting whatever probably romantic thing he had planned for them. 

 

“Well, I thought we could go have a boozy picnic under the stars -- over there? I… don’t know, I just thought it would be nice to be somewhere alone for a bit, I guess, even if the ship is already empty and we would technically also be alone here… I guess we  _ could  _ just go on the deck, or-” 

 

Lup jumped forward to close the space between them that was far too vast, and interrupted Barry with a peck on the cheek. 

 

“I’ll go grab the wine!” 

 

…

 

They held hands as they climbed up the winding wooden stairs to the top of the flat, dead tree home, dark with no lights on inside since everyone was at the central tree along with the rest of the crew. 

 

Once there, they spread out the blankets they brought, lying several on top of each other so that they could lie and look at the stars without being directly on the harsh surface of dead wood. Setting down glasses and the bottle next to the blankets, they sat down facing one another and poured glasses for each other. Barry looked at Lup, enamored with the sight of her, the proximity of her, her her her.

 

...

 

They ended up watching the stars together silently, Lup sitting in front of Barry, leaning back into him. Sitting behind her, he absentmindedly stroked her hair and her ears, massaged her shoulders, and periodically rested his forehead against the back of her head while putting both of his arms around her. Eventually, she started drifting away into blissful calm. She felt him inhale deeply behind her and she knew from the way that he was breathing that he was trying to put words together to say something. 

 

“Lup. You’re so amazing. Everything you did earlier… you’re just- just -- I’m awestruck by you, all of the time. Sometimes, I don’t know- I guess I realize that...  I can’t believe that I get to know you, to get to see the things that you do. L-let alone- let alone be  _ loved  _ by you.” 

 

Lup could hear Barry’s voice behind her growing heavy and shaky with its sincerity. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears, simply from loving her so much. She turned in his arms to face him, to put her hands on either side of his face, her eyes closed, pressed close to him, whispering _ of course I love you of course I do, how could I not love you, I’ve loved you for so long and I’ve loved you so much, my life depends on loving you, it’s so easy to love you Barry, my Barry.  _

 

She wanted to tell him that knowing that he was watching her during everything she did earlier made her feel confident, safe. Knowing that he loved her made her feel stronger than ever. Knowing that he was going to pour love over her when she made it back up safe motivated her. On the verge of her own tears borne from loving him  _ so so much, _ she kissed him desperately. The rush of their win that day, of her display of power, of them being able to protect everyone, save everyone -- she felt all of that energy growing in her heart, and she put all of that into her love for him, her touch, her fervor in kissing him stupid. Leaning into him, they eventually melted onto the blankets, lying in a tangle, their lips never parting. Barry could feel his heart thumping against the inside of his ribs and he could feel the powerful waves of need and adoration coming from Lup, as strong as the heat-soaked wind that had been beating against him through the hatch when he had watched earlier as she summoned waterfalls of crackling flame. He couldn’t  _ believe  _ that he had her love, that all of his feelings were returned. It was still so difficult to wrap his mind around. But it was true; the single most amazing person in existence loved him and he was allowed to love her openly, deeply, with everything in him. The reserves of love that he held tightly onto for decades were an unstoppable, neverending force that invigorated and inspired him as much as it left him weak in the knees and dumbstruck. 

 

There was an unspoken realization in their kiss, in the urgency of their hands grabbing at each other. They both felt the echo of exhilaration from the incredible events of the day, paired with the beautiful calm of the absolute silence around them. They were acutely aware of the guarantee that they were alone, the open sky spread above them, thousands of stars making it just light enough for them to see each other... the warm air, the smell of fragrant trees and grass from below. And their eyes and their arms full of one another. They needed so much more. And they both knew that everything was  _ right.  _

 

...

 

Barry’s body was inhabited by an unending wave of electric shock and his mind went blank, feeling entirely unaware of himself, unable to think of anything except for loving her. He felt as though he had dissolved and that there was nothing left of Barry but a fog, the living essence of the concept of loving Lup. Her smile dropped and her lips parted as she involuntarily sighed at the last motion he made that moved both of them together at once, like the rocking of a river disturbed. She pretended that the feel of the blankets against her skin was instead the feel of them being covered by soft warm water while drifting together on the surface of choppy waves. Turned over on her back, she felt vulnerable, but so safe with him, and she could see the stars as her arms wrapped tightly around the one she loved. Their bare skin was pressed together, bonding, his breath on her neck and her sighing in his ear. Her name along with the words that were still so powerful that they felt like a world-shattering confession were an ever present whispering through his breath heavy with the physical enactment of his love for her. The way her mind faded and her breath left her and her body connected to his made her feel like she was sinking to the bottom of the ocean with him. She let a hand loosely travel up his back to gently touch around the edge of his ear and then traced a finger down his neck and he shivered and she could feel the trembling running through his body and felt goosebumps as she wrote them on his skin. She loved how he was responding to her, loved that she got to draw those responses from him. She felt warmed by the fond memories of noticing when she had made him blush or shiver in the past; it filled her with love and with need and she was overwhelmed by Barry in her arms, by the reality of their bare skin together, the warmth they created together, her heart quickening, for the millionth time that night. She breathed in sharply and gathered a fistful of his hair, entwined a leg around his, hooking him and pulling him closer with just the smallest bit of force. He responded in kind, gathering up her hair from either side in both of his hands and pressing his forehead to hers before diving into her like a body of water, ready to drown with her name filling his lungs instead of air.

***

In the following months, Merle learned and used what language Taako, Lup and Barry had been able to gather to prosthelytize to the gnomish people and Magnus helped with rebuilding, repairs, and putting together a small place of worship within an already hollowed-out tree. The gnomes were ecstatic to be able to plan for a future, to put the empty trees that they had in case their homes were destroyed to actual use, to build things meant to last, to worry about living more than surviving or escaping.  

 

In the lab, Barry was up late, agonizing over trays of samples of all kinds of things that seemed important, but ultimately still added up to nothing. Dissected slices of some of the small creatures they had found in the mud by the reeds a couple years before, a metal-eating rust colored fungus that they had found nearly a decade before, samples of their own hair and swabs from the insides of their mouths and other bits from themselves, aging normally, breaking down over time -- dying. He thought about how drastically different their lifespans were under normal circumstances but how their biological matter all degraded at the same rate. Everyone was equal in death, and it was only thanks to the preservation processes used in the lab that there was anything left of the oldest of their samples. 

And then there was the one particular sample. The one that he wasn’t sure there was any need for, but that he didn’t want to let go of… one that he sometimes felt incredibly weird for not wanting to let go of. A few strands of Lup’s hair; one from the chair in the lab from when he first discovered that bits of them stayed behind and were unaffected by the regeneration process, and then the other from when he found one in his bed upon regeneration after he had died. 

His thoughts went from how confused and frustrated he was with everything that they had accumulated that had told them nothing so far, to smiling thinking about Lup and reflecting back on that year so long past, that moment where he sat flustered and confused on his bed, one of Lup’s hairs on his pillow. When that happened, in the prior year she had gone a long time without him, and he knew that of course once he was back that she would be sad about him dying -- but he had never guessed at that time that she would miss him  _ so  _ much, enough to be so sad and to sleep in his bed from missing him. 

And he was caught up in another distraction… he had been trying hard to focus on what he was doing, to make the most of the time they had with the light. But he couldn’t stop replaying the night he and Lup shared earlier in the year through his head, and once he had gotten himself to stop that, he only wandered to different thoughts about Lup. He just needed to wait for her to work with him; it was the only way he could focus any more, funnily enough. Not being with her was the real distraction -- when she was with him, his motivation was endless and he felt safe and happy with her alive, next to him, together. Because when she wasn’t with him, his eyes longed for her, and not being able to hear her left him feeling incomplete, hollowed out and yearning. 

He heard the door to the lab opening behind him, and he knew it was her. He briefly closed his eyes and smiled before turning around. He was met with the sight of Lup standing in the doorway, caught mid step before entering the lab, stopped in her tracks because she just had to look at him for a moment. They smiled softly at each other, eyes full of one another. She walked over and joined him in their work space, fluidly placing her hand into his as she looked over everything Barry had set up so far for their day of experiments with the light. She looked up from the equipment set out in front of them to meet his eyes. 

“Ready to get down to work?” 

He squeezed her hand. 

“I am now.” 

  
  
  
  



	51. Say Goodbye Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Fifty One

 

The planet for the year was one of consistent gentle wind and pleasant noises, covered in glittering sand made of grains of clear quartz. It was scattered and picked up by the wind and, when it dropped back down to the ground, made light chiming musical sounds. Tall spiraling trunks rose from the sand, hard to the touch, dense and deep green, without branches or leaves or features of any kind. And they were the only break in the endless sea of sand; looming, spiraling appendages that reached for the slate grey sky. 

In the areas where the sand receded or had been blown away entirely by the wind, there was only rock-solid ground that was also clear and shimmering. Dotted across those areas were white, chalky rocks of various sizes. Each of them sat at the end of long trails etched into the hard quartz floor, looking as though they had laboriously moved across the land, leaving deep grooves behind them.

 

“There was something like this back on home world,” Barry started, after Magnus excitedly asked him about it. “It had to do with thin sheets of ice forming and then melting away, pushing the rocks across the ground.” Barry tapped his fingers on his knee. “But really, who knows what it might be caused by here. Could be something totally different.” 

 

“That’ll be fun to find out, I’m sure.” Lup let her head fall on Barry’s shoulder as she sat next to him on the couch in the common room. Everyone was gathered together, enjoying some downtime after completing their regular post-regeneration tasks and making plans for their first-day dinner. Taako sat across from them and pulled a grossed-out face at Lup. She stuck her tongue out before closing her eyes and cuddling into Barry more. She felt sleepy -- working with Barry had become more tiring than usual, mostly because she started out with more energy and with wanting to do things faster, feeling more excited than ever to explore new worlds with him. Or, maybe it was part wanting to explore with him, and also part wanting to get work done faster so that they could have alone time together. Not that working with him wasn’t something that she treasured; but there was just so much more to do together ever since their relationship started.

 

***

 

Later in their room, the twins were sitting on their bed in a tangle of pillows, sheets, and clothes that had been tried on and then discarded in favor of better ones. With everyone else asleep, they had been talking throughout the night about their thoughts on the new plane, what might be there, what they were afraid wouldn’t be there, and what they might have to go the year without. 

Taako slumped back onto a pillow and set his arms behind his head. 

“Yeah, well I know what you’re not going to have to do without, regardless of whether or not there are other people here.”

 

Lup raised an eyebrow.

“Mmm, and what’s that?”

 

Taako snorted before making a sort of squeaking noise, “eee er eee er eee er.”

 

Lup’s eyes narrowed at Taako.

“The fuck is that supposed to be?”

 

He turned over onto his stomach to look at her incredulously. 

“Like a fucking bed squeaking? The springs? You know?”

 

Lup paused and tapped a finger against her lips while looking up, thinking, feigning ignorance.

 “But our beds don’t sound like that.”

 

Taako rolled his eyes.

“Oh you know what I-“

“We just replaced them not all that long ago,” Lup interrupted. “These are top of the line; they don’t even _have_ springs.”

 

Taako huffed as he turned back over.

“You know what I mean!”

 

Lup shook her head and her voice lilted with fake confusion.

“I couldn’t possibly imagine what on the ship might make that noise, or why…” 

 

Taako played along with her, just so that he could burn her a bit.

“Pfft. It may have taken you half a damn century to realize how badly you both wanted to smash, but I know you’re not _that_ dumb.”

 

Lup picked up and hugged the pillow in front of her and snickered. 

“You’re just jealous.”

 

Taako closed his eyes as he leaned back and stuck his nose up at her, having to work at looking aloof.

“Yeah, well. Maybe I am a little bit…” 

 

Lup heard a weak spot in his voice mid-sentence and she realized her mistake. Her brother didn’t have what she had. _Couldn’t_ have what she had. She was playing around, of course, but in doing so, she accidentally rubbed that fact in his face.

“Shit. Ko… I’m sorry.”

 

Taako winced. He didn’t mean to let that slip. He didn’t want to make her feel bad; it wasn’t anything she could help, so there was no point in upsetting her.

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m happy for you. You know I am. It’s just… sometimes it’s a reminder. Of everything that -- or, at least one of the things that makes this all so hard. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m just being crabby.” 

 

Lup was quiet for a moment, contemplating Taako’s feelings, trying not to beat herself up for failing to think about him before joking around with him the way that she just had. He didn’t need to see her feeling sorry; the way that he usually reacted to that sort of thing would be to take back whatever he said and then minimize or gloss it over. Because he never wanted to make her sad. Remembering that just made the fact that he was hurt sting even more. She wormed her way through the blankets to be next to him. 

“We’re… we’re gonna stop this soon, I know it. We’re gonna win this bud, and… and when we do, you _know_ Barry and I are gonna wing-man for you _so hard.”_

 

Taako laughed, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand. Lup leaned her head against his shoulder.

“But really, Ko. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” She pulled close and snuggled up next to her brother. “I’m… really, _really_ lucky to have -- well, to have everyone of course, but I know I’ve got a lot more than anyone else does between having you and Barry.”

 

Taako exhaled a short, dismissive laugh.

“Aww, I’m so glad to be counted with Barry amongst your belongings.” 

 

Lup elbowed her brother and they both laughed.

“Really, though. I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s not anything that can be helped, LuLu. So, there’s no point in being sorry.”

 

“I can be sorry all I want, you don’t tell me what to do.” 

 

“Fair.” 

Taako was silent for a moment while she cuddled up next to him. He fucked up, showing that bit of weakness and giving her something to feel guilty about. He knew that she would keep thinking about it and that she would worry over how to help him. He needed for them to just move along, to not let it become a big deal, to not divulge any more of his burdensome feelings. 

“Could you imagine if we had never come across another planet that had mattresses? And we still had ones that were fifty years old?” 

 

Lup made a gagging sound. 

“Fuck that noise. I would sleep on the floor.”

 

Taako nodded as he closed his eyes, the exhaustion of the day catching up to him.

“Magic can only do so much to hold together a decades-old piece of furniture.” 

 

Lup snorted. 

“Yeah. Wouldn’t it be awesome though if it were more like in books where having magic explained away everything and automatically solved all problems?”

 

“Great, but hella boring I bet.” Taako’s voice was growing far away and sleepy. Lup smiled and closed her eyes. She knew that the conversation wasn’t over, that Taako hadn’t even told her everything about his feelings yet, but she knew that he would when he was able to. For the moment, she appreciated the fact that they were together, that they had made it into a new year, and that so far, they were safe.

 

***

When a week passed and they didn’t see the light fall, they started to make hops with the ship, exploring the world piece by piece, hoping to find something promising. After several weeks of covering hundreds of desolate miles, they found signs of civilization -- first, they saw the beginnings of a modest path weaving throughout desert cliffs. Then, there were signs posted along the path, and after a while longer it widened into a road. They eventually came upon a city, connected by a network of roads to other cities in the not-so-far off distance. They landed near the closest one and Taako, Magnus and Davenport went to make contact first. They found agreeable, soft spoken people there in an impressive variety of shapes and sizes and wildly differing features. And, in direct contrast to the neverending desert outside of the town, every building was filled with and surrounded by painstakingly cared for greenery. Most of the gardens were encased in glass enclosures to prevent the plants from being beaten and toppled by the wind, which was much stronger in the city from being funneled through the narrow streets surrounded by tall buildings. 

 

…

 

Lucretia and Magnus went to the city together the next day -- while he was out with Taako and Davenport the day before, Magnus had an idea. The massive glass tanks, upkept with artificial conditions via misters and lights to support plant life, were not only a feature of the city, but a commodity that was for sale in a warehouse. They were sold in various sizes and shapes, and they even accepted commissions for customized ones. They were able to sell some of the items that they had received from the gnomes in the previous year, ones that weren’t of much use to them other than for bartering -- gems and textiles mostly. With the money they procured between that and taking on some odd-jobs, Magnus working a couple of short-term bodyguard gigs and Lucretia transcribing documents, they were able to afford one of the glass tanks. They took it back to the ship and set it up for Fisher, who seemed much happier with a place to be fully submerged and with room to swim around.  

 

Lup and Barry also procured jobs and worked on acquiring money for supplies that might help them on their search, or at least get them stocked up for the next year. They felt very lucky that they were able to find a job working together in a bookstore. They knew that there was a lot to make sure that they could afford while they had the opportunity to stock up, but they hoped that they would end up being able to spend a little bit on themselves. Once they all had figured out the economy there and made a list of their needs and what they would cost, it looked like they would be in good shape fairly early in the year. Barry and Lup talked to Davenport, who supported them in taking some time and funds to themselves.

 

“I think everyone could use some time off and maybe treat themselves a bit. Between everything we were given last year and being able to buy things here, it looks like we don’t have much to worry about for the time being.”

 

After their talk with Davenport, Lup and Barry walked from the ship towards the city on their way to work. Lup laughed into her hand as soon as the ship door closed behind them.

“Gods, doesn’t it feel like Davenport is our dad sometimes?”

 

Barry laughed along with Lup as he took her hand in his. 

“I mean, when we’re basically asking him for permission to go on a date… yeah, it definitely feels like that.” 

 

…

 

After their first day of getting paid, Lup skipped next to Barry as they started to walk back to the ship. 

“What if we _don’t_ wait until tomorrow to do something?”

 

Barry smiled. Of course the second they were able to, he wanted to go out with her somewhere. But, he hadn’t wanted to press; she _had_ already been around him pretty much every second of that day since breakfast without so much as catching sight of anyone else from the ship. He thought she might want to see Taako, or at least be back for dinner with everyone else, and he assumed that they would wait for a less hectic day for them to go out. But, no. She wanted to find somewhere in the city for them to get dinner together, just the two of them. 

“That place that we passed by this morning?” 

 

Lup beamed.

“That sounds perfect.” 

 

 It had caught their eye both at the same moment, and though it was closed, they got a good feel from just checking through the window. It was small inside, intimate, with mismatched chairs and tables all set with candles and an extremely out of place chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It was calm and chaos all at once, and there was no way to tell what kind of food they might even serve there. Exactly the kind of place Lup and Taako loved to find and try out; either they were going for the shabby eccentric look on purpose, or they were really just more concerned with the food to care about much else, but either way those were the places that usually had the best food. 

 

…

 

They were led to a table with two chairs sitting across from each other and Lup quickly grabbed her chair and dragged it over to sit next to Barry. Sitting down with her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands, she looked at him with a giddy expression and he laughed in response, feeling just as elated as she looked. He tilted his head and looked at her thoughtfully; it was… so normal -- or, it was what was supposed to be normal, but very foreign and strange for them. Being on a dinner date for the first time in over half of a century. It was like a dream, and the hazy, golden red light of dusk gleaming through the narrow windows that stretched from floor to ceiling along with the soft candlelight in a glowing orb around them didn’t help make it feel like any less of a dream. Barry saw the flickering of the candle’s flame reflected in Lup’s bright eyes and he felt a strange rush, almost like he was falling out of his body -- it was a sensation like vertigo, just from how unreal it felt, and he barely noticed as his hand moved to take one of hers. It had become a natural gesture, and the fact that it was so natural was in itself something that felt trance-like, like he wasn’t even in control of his own movements, like he was swiping through the air at nothing while his body was somewhere else, dreaming.

 

Lup watched Barry’s face change, watched the way that he looked at her. She felt consumed with warmth by the intent and deliberate way that he drank her in, from the way that he studied her more intently than she had seen him study anything over the course of decades of working side by side with him on scientific research. She was overjoyed at the fact that they were getting to do something together that, in another life, would have been the sort of thing taken for granted -- going out to dinner on a date together. But, right then she wanted so badly to be alone with him, to watch the sun set and feel the change in temperature together as night settled in, to wait for the stars to come out. Barry saw the quiet longing in her look, the faraway gaze that he had seen so many times before, and he felt sure that he knew what it meant.

“Should we get our food to go?” 

 

Lup smiled wide and dropped her head a bit, almost laughing to herself -- it shouldn’t have been surprising after how much time they had spent together learning each other so deeply, but she was still shocked at how amazing it was that there was a second person in her life that could read her mind. 

“Yeah, I think we should.” 

 

…

 

After being unable to find a quiet spot in the city, and with the desert not being the greatest place to sit and relax what with the wind sending sand flying into hair and eyes and food and mouths, they ended up watching the sunset from the deck. The others took notice and let them have their time together uninterrupted; even though Taako was very tempted to mess with them out of pure boredom. Afterwards, they retreated to Barry’s room -- it was still kind of strange for them; they hadn’t actually spent all that much time in his room so far. It killed Taako; he really had expected them to move lightning fast in their relationship after literal decades of buildup, but they were being as slow and careful about everything as ever. But, starting with that night, they began to make sleeping in his room at least a semi-frequent habit. 

 

…

 

“Tell me more.”

Limp in his arms, feeling thoroughly blissful in the serene calm of early morning, Lup lay glowing under soft rays of light spilling through the small open space of the window shutter. For the better part of the morning, he had been playing with her hair, listing off things that he loved about her while she laid her head against his bare chest.  

 

“I love seeing you look at the stars and how your expression looks like you’re contemplating all of the universe at once. Really just… the way that you look at almost anything. You’re always trying to figure things out, or even just appreciating things for what they are. Seeing that in you over the years, it -- it taught me to appreciate things more, too. Even watching you read a book stops my heart.” 

Barry thought back on all of the times he had caught her reading from the corner of his eye, all of the times he had tried not to stare. 

“It’s like it’s possible to see as you absorb everything, like I’m watching you grow in front of me, becoming more brilliant every minute. And now…” he nuzzled his face into her hair, his eyes closed tight, drawing his arms in around her, “now I get to hold you while we read books together. And just from feeling the way you breathe against me in my arms, I can tell what part of the page you’re on. We read at pretty much exactly the same pace.” Barry was on the verge of tears just thinking about their love, about all of the ways in which things were perfect, how _everything_ was perfect.

 

Anything that she could have ever dreamed of - more than she could have guessed that she would ever have from a relationship - he gave her. And he gave so freely and consistently and fully. He wrote her poems, letters, learned to braid her hair, pet her head and her ears and rubbed her shoulders to sleep, fell asleep next to her whenever they shared his room with his arms around her, never letting go, holding her close, encompassing her in his arms all night, making her feel safe and fiercely loved as she drifted away. And if she ever woke up before him, as she mostly did, he would go with her out on the deck and they would stargaze as they always had before, but with more between them, with their thoughts as words that were said out loud rather than held in so tightly that they ached. And she didn’t have to hope that he would stand close to her, because he was always as close as she wanted him to be, an arm around her or hooked through her arm or holding her hand or his fingers combing through her hair. When he did that last one especially, she almost fell asleep sometimes, even while standing out on the deck where she had gone because she felt so awake. His touch lulled her into something so sound, so safe, so relaxing that she could fall asleep standing if she hadn’t wanted so badly to be awake just to look at him, to hear his deep voice, to talk to him about the planet, about the stars, about the universes, about everything. About the entirety of existence that felt so small and inconsequential compared to their fiery and ever-growing love. 

 

***

 

Lup, Taako, and Magnus were spending time together that day, and Barry stayed at work. He had a pile of books at the store that they had bought for themselves to take home that night, and as much as he wanted to read them along with Lup in his arms, he knew that they couldn’t spend every second together. She needed time with the others, and when Magnus and Taako had talked about going to check out several eateries and bars and stores, Barry knew that it was a good opportunity for him to bow out for a bit and let them have their own time together. He could catch up with Davenport, Merle and Lucretia, and also get started on reading and note-taking. He could relay everything to Lup later that night, or more likely the next morning if they got back late. He smiled to himself as he unpacked new books that had just come in; he was always filled with a sense of electric anticipation over the simplest of things when it came to doing those things with Lup.

 

...

 

There was a sound. An explosive, deep, thunderous sound. A sound like the world was being destroyed right outside the door of the book shop where Barry was working, alone. 

He ran for the door after hearing the noise with the word ‘no’ simultaneously repeating in his head and under his breath over and over and over again. It would be some… just something about that world, right? Some normal reason for why there was that terrible noise… it wasn’t _actually_ something terrible, and if it was, it would be too coincidental for something to have happened exactly where Lup and Taako and Magnus were… it would be ridiculously coincidental, it couldn't… 

But then, stepping outside the door, he saw that everything was chaos. It ended up that the part that was ridiculously coincidental was that the bookshop he was in _wasn’t_ impacted. Large piles of rubble and flame spread out before him, people running, screams from everywhere… a woman with burnt clothing and blood running down her face fell in front of him, and he rushed to help her up.

“Are you okay? W-what -- what happened?” 

 

The woman coughed through panicked tears and struggled to get out any words in response. 

“I-I-I d-don’t know.” 

 

Barry held her by the shoulders to help steady her, but another explosive sound rang out and she wrenched herself away and started running, stumbling as she went. 

Barry looked all around him, not knowing what to do or how to even start doing anything. Lup had excitedly told him some of the places they planned on visiting, but he knew that with the three of them it was very likely that they ended up doing something they hadn’t planned on. So. He would just start walking. Looking around in the rubble. Try to piece together what happened and figure it what he could possibly do. He heard Davenport’s muffled voice — of course, why hadn’t he thought to try their stones? He grabbed it out of his pocket and waited for a moment, waiting for anyone else to respond first. When there was nothing, he finally spoke into it, told Davenport that he was alive and uninjured, and then shoved it back into his pocket before Davenport could ask him about the others, before he could order him to come back to the ship. Then, he thought better of it and brought it back out of his pocket.

“Get Merle out here. Please.” 

He put the stone away, knowing that his request was unreasonable… there were already four of them out in the middle of some sort of catastrophic event with no guarantee that any of them would come back. But he had to at least ask. He braced himself. And he started walking. 

 

…

 

Lup couldn’t hear anything except for the ringing in her ears, couldn’t feel anything except for the dull ache in her head and the stinging sensation of burns and scrapes everywhere. She moved and felt a shooting pain travel from her leg throughout the entirety of her body, causing her to clench her teeth. She was pretty sure that her leg was broken. As the ringing in her ears subsided, she could hear the deep groaning of the partially destroyed building around her and the echoes of chaos in the streets as people yelled out names. She closed her eyes for just a moment, breathing in, gathering herself. She felt her mind reel and start to go black and she popped her eyes back open immediately. Bad idea. She needed to stay alert if she was going to get anything done — because, she was certain that she was on the verge of death. She needed to find out if anyone else was alive, she needed to help in any way that she could, she needed to find her voice so that she could either call for others or answer if she heard her own name called out. If anyone came looking for them and she could at least alert them to their location, maybe they could help Magnus and Taako… they had to be okay, they had to be able to be helped, _they had to._ She grit her teeth and swallowed her pain as she grabbed around in front of her, eventually laying a battered hand on something that she could hold on to, some sort of cold metal bar. She breathed in deep, knowing it was going to fucking hurt. She used every bit of her strength and started to drag herself, feeling something tear as she pulled herself out from underneath bits of blown apart stone wall. She could see a space in the rubble not far in front of her, a space that reached outside. There was smoke pouring in from the opening and she coughed as she desperately worked at making her way out. 

 

…

 

As he ran around, desperately searching, Barry finally saw the source of the destruction; two huge, glowing red, pock-marked crystalline boulders. They looked like the same material as the sand, only almost as tall as the bookshop he had just been inside of. From the impact and from the way they looked as though they were burning up from the inside and with waves of smoke rolling off of them, he assumed that they were whatever that planet’s version of meteorites were. He grit his teeth and tightened his hands into fists, closed his eyes and focused. He wasn’t going to break down. He wasn’t going to expect the worse. He was going to keep looking. He was going to look until he found her and it would be fine. He turned away from the burning boulders and moved on.

And then, a little ways off, he saw a hand rising from underneath a gap in the piles of broken wood and stone walls. And even battered and bloody, even after only catching a glimpse of it for a second from a distance, he knew who the hand belonged to. He ran to her, dodging around debris. He fell to his knees and at once he was haphazardly grabbing at chunks of stone and throwing them behind him, his hands being cut apart and rubbed raw by rough edges of split apart rock and splintered wood. His heart racing, he finally saw her face and had cleared out a space large enough to help her crawl out. 

Barry’s shoulders shook and he choked on the tears from how fast they overtook him, feeling punched in the gut, completely wrecked by the combination of adrenaline surging through him and his heart dropping at the sight of her. One of her ears was torn up, there was a deep gouge in her right forearm, a cut that ran across her forehead, over her eye and across her cheek. Blood poured across her features and she could barely keep her eyes open. But somehow, she still smiled when she finally saw Barry’s face as he gathered her up in his arms. 

She felt heavy, wrong. She was in pain in his arms, dying. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be that wasn’t how wasn’t-

 

She set a hand on face and looked up at him lovingly. 

“It’s okay. I’ll be back.” 

 

Barry tried to hold back his tears, for her. 

“I’m sorry, Lup… y-you shouldn’t be consoling me, you’re in- you’re the one in pain. You’re d-dyi--… oh fuck, oh gods, Lup, Lup, _Lup, no.”_

 

Barry called out for Magnus, for Taako, for Merle even though he felt sure that Davenport hadn’t let him leave the ship. He called out for them, more and more desperate with every moment as he felt Lup’s breathing become slower. He yelled until his voice was hoarse and so thick with holding back sobs that he couldn’t yell anymore. He dropped his head and closed his eyes. He could feel that Lup had stopped breathing. He was scared to look at her. He pulled her close to him, buried his face in her hair and told her that he loved her, under his breath, over and over again. 

 

…

 

With Lup in his arms, limp and lifeless, Barry walked through the rubble, making his way out of the city, dazed and barely aware that his legs were even moving. He found Merle healing someone near the entrance to the city. Merle looked up and saw Barry… and saw Lup. Dead. 

Merle rushed over to him, his face painted with concern, with guilt.

“I’m…” 

Merle was speechless. He didn’t know what to say, how to tell Barry that he didn’t know where any of them were, and that as soon as he entered the city, he saw people all around barely clinging to life and that he had to-

 

“No, Merle…” Barry choked out the words. “It’s good that -- I know they don’t have the luxury of coming back. It’s good. That you helped.” 

Merle’s face softened in gratitude for Barry’s understanding, and then his features fell in despair as he looked from him to Lup hanging lifeless in his arms. He wished he could have gotten there sooner, but Davenport didn’t want to bring the ship in any closer to the city to drop him off. It was a miracle that he let him go in the first place. But, the look that Merle saw on Davenport’s face when he had heard Barry’s voice come in over the stone -- it was like he could feel the pain in just those couple of words Barry said; the pleading, the desperateness. He couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t stay impartial to that sort of thing anymore. 

 

***

 

“At the very least, we can count ourselves lucky that they didn’t hit the ship.”

 

Barry’s eyes were empty and unresponsive as he continued to stare at the floor. Lucretia and Merle looked up at Davenport with painful expressions, and he immediately realized his mistake. 

“I’m sorry. I’m — they are missed, and this was a horrible thing to have happened. I just… Well you know, I just try to look at things in the long term, I — I didn’t mean to be callous.” 

 

Barry’s face was unflinching as he sat on the couch across from Davenport. It barely even looked like he was breathing. Davenport inhaled and braced himself before getting up and walking over to Barry. He hesitated at the edge of the couch before sitting next to him and setting a hand on his shoulder. Lucretia scooted over to be closer and Merle left his seat to walk over to the front of Barry and laid a hand on his knee. They stayed close to him that evening, mostly in pained silence, and they grieved together.

 

…

 

Later that night, unable to sleep, Lucretia went out to the kitchen to make tea. She noticed just before she turned on the light that someone was in the kitchen already, in the dark. With the light turned on, she saw Barry, both hands planted on the counter in front of him next to the sink, an empty glass fallen on its side on the counter next to him. His head was hanging and he didn’t even seem to notice that the light had turned on or that she was there. 

“Barry?”

 

He breathed in abruptly, almost looking like he had just been asleep while standing. 

“Oh. Hey, Lucretia-” 

Barry wiped his arm across his eyes, his sleeve soaking up his tears. He had fallen asleep in his clothes, including his robe, after falling into bed as soon as he had walked into his room earlier. 

“I was just… I was uh, getting s-some water.”

He tried to control his voice, to steady his words, to not sound shaky even though his chest was sore from heaving. 

 

Lucretia glanced at the glass lying on the counter. 

“I see that. Do you… need help?” 

 

“Oh no, it’s-” Barry inhaled deeply, gathering his words, finding his voice. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. I’ll get out of your hair so you can use the kitchen.” 

He picked up the glass, his fingers weak and shaking, almost dropping it again. Lucretia was torn -- she wanted to let him have his space, but she never knew in those sort of situations whether leaving someone alone really was the best thing. But, she saw him struggling to even hold onto the glass and she walked over to him. Wordlessly, she took it out of his hands and put it under the faucet. As she was watching the glass fill with water, she heard him finally lose his hold and start sobbing next to her. He was overwhelmed, ashamed that he couldn’t do something so simple because he had just woken up from a dream that had shaken him, a dream where Lup never came back, a nightmare that felt like it lasted forever where he had to figure out how to live without her, but never could. Lucretia turned off the faucet and set the glass down and turned to Barry, concerned but speechless. 

“I-I’m sorry Luc, I know it’s… it’s fine, she’s going to be back, I _know._ I just… I just can’t help it.” 

 

“Barry. It’s okay. She-” but Barry was sucked in, almost doubled over trying to keep the tears down. 

“Lucretia.” Barry’s breath stuttered as he struggled to inhale, and his words came out in a weak and unfamiliar voice. “Lucretia, I... I don’t know how to be without her anymore.” 

Lucretia felt her heart drop. She put her arms around him and he let his head fall to her shoulder and wept until he couldn’t anymore. 

 

***

 

Taako wasn’t even there to commiserate with. Magnus wasn’t there to bring his special brand of positivity, warmth. 

Lup was gone, Lup was gone, Lup was gone, Lup was gone. 

How was anything supposed to happen how were thoughts supposed to happen how was his brain supposed to function how was anything anything 

Lup was gone. How- 

The space between his arms felt like miles of empty grey land, felt like desolation, felt like if he moved his arms at all they would fall into a neverending void because there was no Lup to fill them. His chest was cold without her warmth, his shoulders felt too light without her arms slung over them, every inch of his face where she had last kissed him felt painfully tender. The tears never stopped; even as he went through the motions of his work, there was a constant pressing at the back of his eyes that made him feel nauseous to swallow. He felt his body filled with the sickening poison of loss and he had to work at holding it inside as he merely existed until he could lie down in bed at the end of the day and let it all out, let it out until he exhausted his body to the point where he passed out on the tear dampened pillow, cold and salty and unforgiving and stinging. 

She felt so far away, so distant. It had been a week without her, and he felt like he would never see her again. Every time he woke up, it felt like it had been years since he last saw her, and every nightmare was about things changing, was about living a normal life, was about Lup dying and death being permanent. Having a funeral, austere and harsh, no friends, no reminiscing; just rain and tears and darkness. Just hours of having to figure out how to get past the lump in his throat to say something before never seeing her again, having to figure out how to say goodbye forever. And then living a life without Lup, with less and less light every day until he was gone, too. 

He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t _ever_ do that. Couldn’t ever wear black, couldn’t look at her for the last time, couldn’t watch her go into the ground. And he couldn’t die before her, either. How could he ever stop clinging desperately onto life if she still lived? He thought about how the need to never hurt her should have been stronger than death -- but what was there stronger than death? Even with their quasi-immortality, they still experienced it. Everything else had changed, and while death wasn’t permanent, it was still there. It still came for them, and it still reminded them of everything that could be taken away, everything that could go wrong, everything that might one day become an unavoidable part of their lives again. 

There had to be a way to be stronger. There had to be a way to be with Lup forever. 

He refused to believe that he would one day have to say goodbye. How could you ever say goodbye to someone like Lup? 

He couldn’t.

_He would not._

  
  



	52. Ashes to Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Fifty Two

 

 

 

In the minutes leading up to regeneration, Barry’s head was pounding, his eyes burned, his shoulders hurt from tension and from slouching. He was utterly exhausted. He wanted to smile -- he was about to see her, after all. But there was just so much pain and he didn’t know how he was going to keep himself together once he got to see her face again. How would he restrain himself from darting over to her and grabbing onto her and holding her against him, threading his fingers through her hair and pressing his face against her and sobbing. And that was only if he was able to stay standing, only if his knees didn’t buckle underneath him. 

 

Regeneration was stranger than usual for him that time; the amount of pain and stress in his body was a stark contrast to his recorded state, and feeling all of that heaviness lifted from him after the numb buzz of being pulled apart and reassembled was a shock to his system. Suddenly, he didn’t feel like he was going to collapse, he was able to open his eyes all of the way and he wasn’t aching and trembling with sleep deprivation. He didn’t realize until that moment how little he had been eating and how dehydrated he was. He was acutely aware of how healthy and normal his body felt, and through clear, alert eyes -- he saw her. Saw her alive, uninjured, standing, and with her eyes fully open and bright and not dimming with the onset of death, like the image that had been playing in his head over and over and... 

Her shoulders dropped and her eyebrows cinched together as she closed the short distance between herself and Barry. He hurriedly wrapped his arms around her and buried his face into the spot where her shoulder met her neck, where her hair spilled over. He held his breath and shut his eyes tight and focused on the feeling of her in his arms, of her breathing normally, and he somehow willed himself to not fall apart. He just wordlessly held her tight, as if he were trying to keep her life from leaving her body again. She could feel how hard he was working at controlling his breathing, intentionally measuring each breath, in and out. She ran a hand through his hair and pet his head reassuringly before pulling away a bit so that she could kiss his cheek.

 

“Hey man, what about Taako? I don’t get any love?” 

 

Barry let Lup go, as hard as it was to do that, and forced a small laugh as he wiped at his eyes and faced Taako. 

“You know I missed you two, t-” Barry could hardly manage speaking through the tightness in his throat, but he didn’t get the chance to say much before Magnus swept both him and Taako into his arms, smushing them together against him. 

  
  


***

  
  


“I’m sorry that you… that you had to see me like that.” Lup exhaled, the heaviness in her chest audible in her sigh. “It didn’t even do any good for me to get out of there, I almost wonder if it would have been better if I’d just stay-”

 

“No, no.” Barry squeezed her hand tighter as they sat on the edge of his bed together. “It was rough, but I would have rather seen you before -- before you went. Instead of… not being able to find your body at all. Not knowing whether or not you were still alive, maybe in pain. I mean, what if you had been trapped and died slowly over hours and-”

 

Lup turned to him and settled a finger on his lips to stop his spiraling before it could continue. 

“But that’s not what happened, Bear. It was -- quick. And I don’t remember a lot. Things were pretty hazy as soon as it all happened.” 

She removed her finger from his lips and trailed it along his cheek before settling her palm there, gently tilting his face to look at her, to stop him from staring blankly at the floor. 

“That’s  _ not  _ what happened. And I’m here now. See?” 

She took his hand and pressed it against her own cheek. He weakly smiled; it was hard, but he knew that he needed to recover and take comfort in the fact that she was there. He needed to let her help him recover instead of exposing her to his pain and continuing the paranoid and anxious thought patterns that he had spent months wallowing in. She was there. It wasn’t like any of his nightmares. She came back. She was there, holding his hand, speaking, uninjured, unchanged - just Lup. 

 

Her hand still on his cheek, she drew close and rubbed her nose alongside his. Her eyes closed and she felt a wave of emotion that caused tears to gather at the corners of her eyes. He loved her  _ so much,  _ and he had watched her and felt her die as he held her. 

She remembered dying in his arms. At the time it was comforting; it lessened her pain, it allowed her to slip away peacefully. It was almost euphoric, feeling safe in his arms, surrounded by his warmth as her body felt colder and colder. But for him…

 

 In the moment, she wouldn’t have wanted to die any other way. But, being back in reality, back where there were consequences and weight to the things that happened -- she wanted so badly to be able to take that pain away from him, and that want sat like a rock in her stomach. 

 

But it wasn’t possible to take it away, to fix it. She could only be there for him and with him. She raised her other hand and settled it on the other side of his face as she continued to move her nose along the side of his. She could feel him growing calm, and their breathing synced up as she slowly inched closer until their lips brushed up against each other. His body relaxed and he melted towards her, following her lips. They didn’t leave the room until the next day. 

 

*******

 

The planet was made up of nothing but rolling green hills of short grass mixed with plush moss. And graveyards. Miles and miles of individual graveyards surrounded by wrought iron fences. And they looked to be from all different time periods; some were filled with crumbling monuments to the dead, some were dotted with bright and new pristine headstones. But… there was nothing else. Or at least not that they could find. Maybe there was a society underground or living things everywhere that they were just unable to see, or maybe even the headstones themselves were sentient. Anything could be anything; they had learned that lesson again and again. But, as long as they were there, as far as what they could see and comprehend, there was nothing but grass and moss and cold iron fences and graves. And absolute, perfect silence. Not a hint of wind, not a single insect or bird. The cushiony, springy ground reinforced by the thick moss seemed to mute their footsteps so that even they themselves barely made noise as they went out into the world. 

 

…

 

Taako went out for a walk on his own. He had things that he wanted to think about, and the world was quieter than inside the ship, even when everyone was asleep. He hadn’t felt so calm, so safe in a world for a long time. Even after having just died somewhere that seemed safe, he didn’t feel on guard there for some reason. Something spoke to him there, calmed him, lifted a little bit of the burdens of fear and loneliness off of him. He wasn’t sure why a place with no one and nothing except for miles of graves would be the sort of place that would make him feel less lonely. He felt like there was something to assess there, something to examine about himself. So, he went for a walk on his own, which was not a frequent occurrence for him. 

He barely remembered the moments leading up to his death on their previous planet. He was laughing with Lup and Magnus; he had taken something off of a shelf in the store that they were in and was using it as a puppet, making it say… something. The copious amounts of head trauma that occurred minutes later made everything just before that pretty fuzzy, and that stage of short term memory loss was what he was left with when he appeared back on the ship. They were laughing, and then there was just noise, then darkness. He had a moment of very faint awareness in there somewhere; waking up unable to move, hearing a voice that he couldn’t place calling his name. And then he was back, and it was as though he had never been separated from Lup for more than a minute. And he was grateful for that. He hadn’t talked to him much yet, mostly because Lup was hogging him, but he wanted to let Barry know how bad he felt for him. But… maybe not come off that way. Not bad for him… or sorry for him… what did he want to tell him? Maybe just that he understood.

Right then, Taako made it to the top of a rolling hill, and he could see far into the distance from the slightly elevated ground. As he stood still and took in the view in front of him, he felt a strange tug from within. He remembered having that same distracting, almost out of body feeling once before, back in Tesseralia. It was similar, like a soft woolen yarn woven around his insides, gently pulling him towards… somewhere. It wasn’t painful, it wasn’t unpleasant in any way; in fact it caused the same sort of rush of feelings that he had on the rare occasions where he felt especially moved by something. A beautiful sight, a moment with his family that he held dear, a perfectly created dish of food that he felt especially proud of and that made others happy. And physically, it felt a bit like the sensation of being put back together by the bond engine. But, that time the pull felt primarily centered from his chest, around his heart, quickening his pulse and making him dizzy and disconnected from his body for a moment. He felt a sensation of love altogether unique from any kind he had felt before, but he didn’t know for who or what, and he didn’t know where the pull was trying to take him. He only knew that it was there and that it filled him with a longing that both hollowed him out and made him feel hopeful for the first time in a long while. But it felt kind of -- inappropriate to be feeling something so beautiful and lively while taking in a view of hundreds of symbols of death. Ornately carved headstones, weathered by time, covering the green hillsides, darkening in the setting sun. It really was a beautiful scene and it had taken his breath away as soon as it came into view when he took the last few steps to the top of the swell of ground he was traversing. But what he was feeling was something more than simply seeing a gorgeous bit of scenery... just like how in Tesseralia, it had been more than just taking a bite of an amazing and unique plate of food. It felt like a promise, something to look forward to, to be motivated by. Something was at the other end of that string pulling at him. He at least knew that much. 

 

***

 

Looking out from the deck of the ship, alone, Barry felt sick at the sight of miles of graveyards stretched out in front of them. In his months of nightmares, there had been enough graves, enough burials, enough unsettlingly perfect green grass and clean, polished headstones. It was frighteningly coincidental, like some cosmic force was out to torture him. But no; he knew that he wasn’t that important. In absolute randomness, there were going to be strange coincidences sometimes. Or, ways to look into situations and interpret them as more than coincidental. They could have very well ended up somewhere that was all rubble, somewhere with more falling meteorites, or any other number of things that might have reminded him of his months of agony. 

He felt a hand on his arm that lightly pulled at him. He turned and saw Lup, and she looked concerned. 

“Come on, babe. Let’s go inside.” 

 

***

 

Lup hated the pain that Barry was in. But, she understood. Even before they had confessed their love, before they had become closer than ever, she had still been a wreck any time that he died, even with the promise of having him back. She even slept in his bed a handful of times that one year. She couldn’t imagine how much worse it was going to be when…

Of course she had always been upset, always missed him. But then, with their hearts so wrapped up in each other, with their time together being spent on so many new and precious things -- it was definitely going to be harder when it inevitably happened. And she was sorry that he had to experience it so soon, that he had to experience it first. And the way that it happened, the last moments that he had with her… that definitely didn’t help. 

Sitting out on the deck, looking over the landscape of headstones, she thought about the seemingly endless years and worlds they were experiencing. And while they were getting stronger, ostensibly the Hunger was too. It didn’t feel like they were much closer to a resolution, to a stopping point. If anything was going to happen, if something was going to finally break, they needed to find a way to get ahead, to advance faster. They needed to learn more and grow stronger before the Hunger could grow to a point where it was even more unstoppable, a point where it found them instantly -- a point where it could destroy them along with everything else. The only way that the death and pain and destruction of societies, of worlds, of entire planes of existence was ever going to stop was if they pushed harder, thought of something new, or maybe found something new, something useful, finally, on one of the planets they inevitably visited. She didn’t know what it could or would end up being -- but there had to be something different, eventually. Something that would break the cycle, something strong enough to stop their struggle from spinning on for eternity. Because so far, nothing was working. And it was becoming harder every year to face that fact. 

 

***

  
  


They had less than a month left when they finally found the light. It was sitting out in the open, on top of a green hill. They were overly cautious at first, because the light just sitting there, doing nothing, was just as intimidating as a lot of the other ways they had found it. They expected the ground to crack open as soon as they walked over to it, or for something to fall from the sky, or some sort of creature to come charging at them to grab it up. But nothing happened. And Barry and Lup had the light for at least a little while. 

 

The light was quiet. Concerningly so. It seemed to reflect the planet they were on, as if its time sitting there alone on the hill caused it to absorb the personality of its surroundings. Still, silent, solemn. They were happy not to hear its whispering, not to feel its effects, but it was unsettling nonetheless. They had grown used to it over the years and were better at resisting its voice for the most part, but they were sure that they hadn’t become entirely immune to it. Its silence that year was only part of its strangeness.

 

Davenport pinched the bridge of his nose as they sat around the table, talking it over. 

“I just -- really hate it when things have been one way for so long and then change. Like getting the rug pulled out from under us just as we’re getting better at things.”

 

“Well, hopefully it’s only this year.” Merle idly pulled at his beard as he spoke. “This whole place is pretty strange.” 

 

“Every place is strange.” Lucretia sat at the table with them, not looking up from her writing as she spoke in a hollow, tired voice. They were all tired. And it showed. 

 

***

 

The light gave — some sort of power, or ability or… Barry wasn’t entirely sure what it gave. None of them were. It was different everywhere, every time. Sometimes it sucked the life from things, other times it made them powerful, sometimes it caused a random phenomenon. With such versatility, he wondered what else it might be able to do. He wondered if maybe it could be wielded without negative repercussions… if anyone could do that, wouldn’t it be them? They still didn’t totally understand, but he was sure that they understood it more than anything or anyone had ever been able to. What if it could be harnessed, used responsibly? What if it could be used to -- used to  _ give  _ life. To keep life, to… he had wondered the year before what could be stronger, more consistent than death. Maybe it was the Light of Creation. 

 

He trash-canned that line of thinking fast and shook his head before placing a palm over his eyes. The light wasn’t even whispering or pulling that year and he was finding his own ways to be tempted by it. That wasn’t going to go anywhere good. Besides, if they were ever to try using it for anything, they would need to know a lot more about it. And they would need to all talk, together. But, a significant part of him hoped that eventually they might find that it had an answer to his question of what could be stronger than death. 

 

 

 


	53. Stare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Fifty Three

 

 

 

When Taako walked through the door of the Starblaster, it was obvious at once that something was wrong. 

 

Lup and Barry were taking some time reading a book together in the common room, Lucretia was sketching, Magnus was laid out on the couch. Merle and Davenport had cards on the table in front of them, but at some point had stopped playing in favor of a heated but friendly debate over the specifics of a memory from a planet decades past. 

 

Lup was the first to look up at Taako, and she was on her feet in a second. The look in his eyes was -- wrong. Barry got up because Lup did, and followed behind her as she dashed over to her brother. 

 

“Hey, what’s…” Lup didn’t finish her sentence. She could already tell that he wasn’t responsive, that he wasn’t even actually  _ there. _ His eyes were blank, his pupils fixed in the center, and he awkwardly moved his head around rather than his eyes to take in the room. He was scanning over everything as if it was the first time he had seen any of it. 

 

Davenport hopped out of his chair and motioned for Merle to follow him. He stopped in front of Taako and looked him over, puzzled by how he couldn’t seem to make eye contact with him. 

“What was he doing out there anyways?” 

 

Lup was in full panic mode; her brother didn’t look right and it was making her feel sick to her stomach. She looked over questioningly at Magnus who was watching the scene from the couch.

“You were with him last…” 

 

Magnus shrugged. 

“He said he was just going fishing!” 

 

Taako hadn’t blinked once as far as they noticed, and he continued to very occasionally part his lips, leaving his mouth agape with a small pop.

 

Lup looked down at Merle. 

“Can you- can you figure this out, maybe?”

 

Merle shrugged. 

“What’s wrong with him? I can’t tell any difference.” 

 

Lup lightly tagged Merle on the back of the head. 

“Now is not the time to be a dick, Merle, c’mon.” 

 

Barry stepped closer to Taako, wanting to get a better look at his eyes to see if there was anything that would clue him in on his condition, but Taako recoiled and oddly wriggled his entire body as he backed away from Barry. 

“Well. Shit.” Barry stopped his advance towards Taako, not wanting to scare him off even further. 

 

Lup turned towards the couch where Magnus was peering over the back. 

“Magnus, you found the lake with him, right? Did he mention the spot he was gonna fish near, or anything at all that might help us figure this out?” 

 

“Oh!” Magnus shuffled himself off of the couch and stood up. “Yeah, actually. There was a kind of shady area with some big rocks that he said looked good for fishing.” 

 

“Well, alright.” Lup straightened up and took a deep breath. “Let’s go check things out over there.” 

 

Barry looked back and forth between Lup and Taako.

“Should we… take him with us?” 

 

Lup sighed, thinking. 

“I… I don’t know. Maybe he’s safer here.” Lup looked down at the floor, trying to reason things out through her panic.  

“Actually, I’ll stay with him, if you and Magnus want to go look? And then if you don’t find anything, we can try going there with him, see if it makes any difference or if he can maybe lead us to something.” 

 

Lup looked at Taako’s face and Barry noted the worry written all over her own as she did. He set a reassuring hand on her shoulder. 

“We’ll figure it out.” 

 

Lup weakly smiled through the stress of the situation and leaned over to peck Barry on the cheek. 

“I know you will.” 

  
  


***

  
  


At the edge of the river by the shady, rock-filled area that Magnus led Barry to, they found Taako’s fishing rod and pack with all of his things intact. There was no evidence of any kind struggle or anything destroyed or out of place as far as they could tell. The large rock that he had most likely used as a spot to sit was dappled with sunlight through the leaves of the tree that arched above it, looking almost like it was made to provide that particular spot with just the perfect amount of shade and sun to be able to sit there comfortably all day. 

 

There was only silence between them as they circled the area, leaving Taako’s things exactly as they were until they fully investigated the scene. Then, they heard splashing behind them. Being closer to the water’s edge, Magnus whipped his head around. 

 

“Huh.” 

 

Barry looked up from the mass of roots at the base of the tree that he was examining. 

“What is it, bud?”  

 

“This fish is just going nuts over here.” Magnus pointed down to the edge of the water as Barry approached. A hand-sized fish swam all the way up the shore until it was partially out of the water, unable to swim any further, thrashing on top of the pebbled ground. 

 

“That’s… strange.” Barry kneeled down to take a closer look, and he was sure that he saw the fish’s pupil move towards his face in recognition. It was a subtle movement, but one unnatural enough for a fish that it startled Barry. He stood up and spoke to Magnus without taking his eyes off of the fish. 

“I think that’s Taako.”

 

Magnus blinked.

“Excu- what?” 

 

“I think it’s Taako. Wasn’t the way he was acting on the ship kind of -- I don’t know, reminiscent of a fish?” 

 

Magnus scrunched up his face in thought, meanwhile the fish thrashed harder at the mention of Taako’s name. 

 

“Okay, I’ve got to do something about this.” 

Barry kneeled down at the edge of the water again. He scooped up the fish and set it a little farther back into the water so that it wasn’t in danger of suffocating itself. 

“Listen, I get it -- I think. We’ll be right back with something to put you in.” 

The fish calmed considerably and stayed where Barry set it in the water, its fins moving lightly to keep it floating in place. Magnus stood behind Barry, open-mouthed. 

 

“That’s Taako! Oh shit!” Magnus looked down in disbelief, unsure of what to do next.

 

Barry nervously tapped his finger against the side of his leg.

 “Yeah. I’m pretty sure. You want to uh, stay here? I’ll go get a jar and you can make sure he doesn’t get eaten by a -- I don’t know, a bird or another fish or something?” 

 

Magnus nodded energetically. 

“Yeah, yeah of course. I’ll wait right here.” 

 

As Barry walked away, Magnus kneeled down by the water and looked thoughtfully at the fish.

“This is so weird. That’s really you, huh?” 

The fish responded by swimming in a quick circle. 

 

Magnus went from kneeling to sitting on the shore, propping an elbow on his knee and resting his chin on his palm. 

“I think it might be kind of cool to be a fish, just to try it out. But, I bet you don’t like it. Actually, if you are Taako… you probably hate it.”  

 

The fish remained completely still and only stared heavily at Magnus. 

  
  


 ***

  
  


Barry and Magnus returned to the ship with the fish in a large flour jar that Barry had hurriedly dumped out before running back to the lake. Barry and Magnus explained the situation together as everyone gathered back in the common room. 

 

Lup looked from the jar over to the expressionless and unnervingly still body of Taako and winced. She hated the way he looked. 

“Yeah, I knew that he wasn’t actually here this whole time...” 

 

Barry caught the look on Lup’s face and his anxiety spiked; he had to help, had to make things better. He couldn’t let something like that happen to her, to Taako. He wasn’t going to let her spend the year without her brother. Or at least, without him in the correct body.

 

Lup was trying to keep Taako sitting on the couch, but he stood up over and over, wanting to walk in aimless circles around the room while bumping into things. She got him to sit down once more, and Barry sat next to them with the jar in his lap, mulling over what to do. As soon as Barry was sitting on the couch next to Taako’s body, the fish began swimming around furiously before pressing itself as hard as it could against the glass. Upon noticing the fish, Taako scrambled off of the couch and tried to rush out of the room. Lup leapt up and chased after him, then grabbed at his shoulders to lead him back in, but he wrenched himself away, looking terrified. He stiffly backed away until he was up against the wall behind him. Lup sighed and left him alone, watching intently from a few feet away. 

 

Davenport looked on from where he sat at the table, wanting to help but feeling utterly confused by everything that just happened. 

“I… don’t know how to interpret that reaction.” 

 

Still holding the jar, Barry looked down into it at the wriggling fish. 

“He…  _ it  _ obviously doesn’t want to be near -- the uh, the fish, so?”

 

Lup’s shoulders drooped as she continued to watch the scared and confused looking Taako in the corner. 

“I don’t know, hold it near him I guess? Maybe if they’re close enough it’ll do something. Or we can try taking it-  _ him  _ out of the jar?” 

 

As they all moved in on Taako, forming a half circle in front of him to corner him and keep him from running off again, Barry approached with the jar. Once they had them near each other, the fish swam aggressively against the glass. Taako’s body flailed and twisted away from the glass jar, seeming unable to move its neck or close its eyes, and turned itself into the corner, averting its gaze from the jar.

 

Davenport nervously twisted the end of his mustache back and forth. 

“It pretty obviously doesn’t want to look at the jar, so maybe we should make it?” 

 

“Yeah, I think that’s a good call.” Barry handed the jar to Lup before turning to Magnus.  

“Uh, Magnus, you wanna...?” 

 

Magnus approached Taako from behind and held onto him with both arms hooked through his elbows and turned him away from the corner. Barry came at him from the side and set a hand on either side of his head to hold him still. With eyes wide open and unmoving pupils, it couldn’t help but look straight into the jar as Lup lifted it to his face. Seconds later, Taako yelled. 

 

“Shit, okay! You can get off me!” 

 

Lup’s eyes lit up.

“You’re okay!” 

 

“Pfft. Barely.” 

As Magnus and Barry stepped away from Taako, he ran a hand over his hair, settling the flyaways caused by the struggle, then readjusted his coat around his shoulders. Lup handed the jar over to Magnus so that she could hug Taako. He hugged her back, but as soon as Lup moved away, he stood still, silent. He closed his eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath. 

 

He was seething. 

 

“I swear to fuck, I don’t even care if it’s too small, I am killing and eating that fish. Right. Fucking. Now.” 

 

As Taako started to walk towards Magnus to grab the jar away from him, Magnus drew it in close to himself and turned away protectively. 

“But! It’s smart… kind of? It just wanted to not be a fish, is that so bad?”

 

Taako clenched his fists, his arms hanging at his sides. 

“Yes,  _ Magnus,  _ it was  _ very  _ bad because it didn’t fucking ask me and I definitely did  _ not  _ want to be a fish, so hand it over so that I can filet it and drown it in butter.” 

 

Magnus pouted before lifting the jar up in front of him to look at the fish. 

“You really made him mad, little guy. What if-” Magnus stopped mid-sentence as the fish stared at him. His eyes went wide and his mouth started to hang open a bit. He dropped the jar and it crashed against the ground, the glass shattering everywhere leaving the fish flopping wildly on the floor. 

 

“Shit! Shit, pick it up! Fuck, where’s another jar?” Lup ran into the kitchen. 

 

Taako had his arms crossed and rolled his eyes, failing to catch the expression on Magnus’s face.

“Yo, fuck that fish, let it do its thing and suffocate like the gods intended.” 

 

Barry pointed as he kneeled down onto the floor by the shattered remains of the jar.

“No- Taako, look at Magnus!” 

Magnus responded to the yelling and the chaos by hurrying out of the room, walking strangely with his arms hanging limp. 

 

“Oh… Oh FUCK, THAT’S MAGNUS.” Taako dropped to his knees, ignoring the shards of glass scattered across the floor and hurried to pick up the frantically flopping fish. Lup dashed back in with a shallow bowl of water.

 

“Here, just get him into this for now.” 

  
  


…

  
  


After saving the fish and finding another large jar to transfer it into from the cereal bowl, they chased down the body of Magnus that was running in random circles through the common room and into the kitchen and back. With a great amount of difficulty, having to each block off a different area so that they could herd him into a corner, they finally got him in one spot. Barry grabbed him by the shoulders while Merle and Davenport each held onto a leg and did their best to keep him from wriggling away. Taako and Lup grabbed at his flailing arms and held them back before he could knock away the jar and break it again, and Lucretia lifted the jar to his face. But, with the fish’s brain piloting Magnus’s body and having no instinct except to escape and to use all of Magnus’s unbridled strength in order to do so, he was able to tear away, yanking at Taako’s arm hard enough to make him yelp. Flinging his freed arm backwards, he caught Barry across the side of the face with his hand as he swung around, pulling himself violently out of Barry’s grip and twisting his other arm away from Lup before running off in the direction of the kitchen, sending Merle and Davenport falling onto the floor and almost knocking Lucretia over on his way. They all ran after him as he went through the doorway that led from the kitchen into the hall that led to their rooms, looping back to the alternate common room entrance, and then saw as he pushed through the door leading out to the deck that had been left partially open. Hurrying after his fleeing body, they saw him on the deck looking fearfully all around, realizing that there were no more doorways to run through and nothing to hide behind or under out on the large, open space of the deck. They ran for him, thinking they would have him cornered at the edge, but Magnus’s body turned to face away from them and started running. 

 

Lup gasped.

“Oh fuck, he’s gonna jump off!” 

 

“Okay, I’m tired of this shit.” 

Taako flipped a hand upward, muttered a few words under his breath, and cast sleep. Magnus’s body fell to the ground, face first. The sound was heavy and there was a light crunch underneath the thud of his body hitting the deck, and they collectively cringed at the sound. Barry apprehensively walked over to Magnus and turned him over. 

 

“Oof, yeah I’m pretty sure his nose is broken. That’s gonna be a fun sensation to hop back into.”

 

Lup walked up behind Barry and peeked around him at Magnus’s busted up face. Merle brusquely walked around and in front of them so that he could see. 

“Creepy. His eyes are still just wide open, huh?”

 

Taako waved a flippant hand in the air as he gathered behind them to look at the damage. 

“Well, that’s how fish sleep, or rest or whatever.”  

 

“You know, I bet he’ll probably think it’s badass.” Lup leaned against Barry’s shoulder as she regarded the situation on the ground in front of them. Then, she straightened and shook her head.

“Shit, what am I saying… Merle, maybe take the edge off before Magnus hops back in.” 

 

“Oh. Yeah, I’ll get on that right now.” 

Merle laid his hands on Magnus’s face, across the nose and the rapidly swelling areas on his forehead and right cheekbone. Once Merle got Magnus a little bit less beat up looking, Barry knelt down and pulled him up into a sitting position by the shoulders, but not without a fair amount of difficulty, struggling against Magnus’s dead weight. Lup took the jar from Lucretia and knelt down. 

 

“Hopefully this still works while it’s passed out?”

 

Davenport sighed, feeling like he had been holding his breath for the last several minutes. 

“I guess we’ll find out.” 

 

Lup held the jar up to Magnus’s face while Barry continued to keep him propped up. 

 

“He’d… better… fucking hurry and... get back in there.” Barry spoke through gritted teeth, struggling to hold up a limp Magnus.

 

A short moment later Magnus blinked and sat up on his own and Barry was able to let go of him. As soon as he did though, Magnus’s eyes closed and he fell back onto the floor of the deck and began snoring loudly. 

 

“Cool cool, okay, can we at least put a fucking blanket over that thing now or something?” Taako leaned his head far back to look up at the sky as he spoke, frustrated and not wanting to risk another incident with the fish. 

 

Merle hurriedly took off his robe and Lup knelt down so that he could throw it over the jar. 

 

Taako sighed. “So, can we kill it? We’re gonna kill it? Can we please just  _ kill it?” _

 

Lup shrugged slowly. 

“Why don’t we just… put it back in the lake and then stay the hell away from there?”

 

Taako took in a deep, long breath.

_ “Fine.”  _

He walked off of the deck and went inside. He decided to just make himself busy in the kitchen since obviously no one was going to let him take out his frustration on a small fish, albeit one that completely  _ sucked. _

  
  


***

  
  


Lup and Barry waited for Magnus to wake up, figuring that he would want to go along when they set the fish free. They kept the robe over it, though. 

 

“I would really like to figure out more about it...” Barry tapped the edge of the desk in the lab, looking at the covered bowl. 

 

“Me too, babe, but everyone is rattled and wants it out of here. And it did just almost kill Magnus. Or, it most likely would have if it ran off of the deck with his bod.”

 

Barry scrunched up his face while he absently looked at the bowl. Lup set her hand on his to ease his nervous tapping. 

 

“Besides, I don’t think Magnus would forgive you if you dissected it. And it’s not like you can observe it while it’s alive…” 

 

“I knowww.” Barry pouted in the stern sort of way that he did when something disappointed him in the lab, and Lup laughed before getting out of her chair and bending over to kiss the top of his head. 

 

“C’mon, let’s go see if Magnus is awake yet.” 

  
  


***

  
  


“So, it’s all the fucking animals around here then? Not just the asshole fish?”

Taako complained to Lup through panting breath as they ran outside after seeing Magnus’s body acting strange. Less than an hour before, he had gone out on his own to run the perimeter of the ship, as he often did.

 

“Yeah, I don’t know why we would have thought any different… big fuck up on our part, huh?”

 

Back in front of the ship, an injured deer limped up the ramp. The same young, very sad looking deer with a leg injury that Magnus found curled up outside while he was walking and had gone to help without thinking anything of it. He was on the verge of tearing up as the little deer looked up at him with frightened eyes, but didn’t have the chance to shed a tear before he suddenly found himself disoriented and confused by a strange, full body sensation. Then, he was the one in pain, sadly looking up at himself.   

 

Even though it was stiff and clumsy, the deer pushed Magnus’s body to run as fast as it could, and Lup and Taako could barely keep up with it. Chasing it through the sparse woods, it suddenly turned a sharp corner around a rocky wall that steadily angled out of the ground, turning into a grassy ledge. Seeing its trajectory, they hoped to cut it off by running up the ledge and jumping down, or they thought at least maybe they could get close enough from there for one of them to cast something to stop it. But, reaching the top of the edge, they saw that the other side only had a short stretch of dirt before it turned into a cliff. The ground was dotted with large rocks and the deer didn’t slow down its mad dash to get away from them. 

 

They were unable to do anything but watch as Magnus’s body, steered by a frightened animal, tripped over a rock and was unable to recover, causing it to tumble straight off of the cliffside. The thud they heard sounded a little bit too far away. Looking over the edge, it was obvious that the fall was fatal. 

  
  


***

  
  


Fully healed with a couple days of rest and some work from Merle, Magnus wandered the ship and it took everyone a while to get used to the fact that he was existing in a deer’s body. 

 

“Ah fuck!” 

Barry dropped a cup of coffee on the floor after turning around and finding himself face to face with a deer. It was too early in the morning for him to deal with that kind of shit. He took off his glasses and rubbed at his face with his palm.

 

“I guess you’re hungry or something, huh?”

 

Barry turned to the cupboards and started to look around for something to give Magnus. Magnus sidled up near him, peering into the cupboards as Barry opened them. Barry had to catch and then resist the absent-minded reaction to almost pet Magnus’s head. Not that they had never ruffled each other’s hair or thrown an arm around each other or shown each other affection in any number of ways before, but -- tenderly petting his head as one would with a deer -- it felt kind of weird. Touching him while he was in a body that wasn’t his in general seemed strange. Neglecting him didn’t seem great, either, but… it was too fucking early. He’d figure it out later. 

  
  


…

  
  


In the sunroom, Merle laid on the top of the retaining wall around the garden bed with a hand flopped down, petting deer-Magnus’s head as he lay on the ground next to Merle, steadily falling asleep. Just as Merle’s eyes were closing, Lucretia walked into the sunroom and smiled at the sight. It was strange knowing that the deer was actually Magnus, especially with how delicate and graceful it looked. The sun was falling down on them from the glass ceiling, brightening the array of colors of the randomly placed flowers in Merle’s hair. The full, green plants in the garden bed were set as a backdrop behind Merle, with the deer curled on the floor under his hanging hand. Lucretia sat down and started to draw.

  
  


***

  
  


They escaped, once again. And they regenerated in their same spots, their same bodies, as always. They greeted each other as they always did, happily and calmly with there being no deaths. They all gathered around Magnus, back in his body, and hugged him one after the other. Magnus smiled and stretched, feeling his limbs, the sensation of standing upright, the heaviness of muscle across his shoulders. And then, his smile dropped and he looked down at Merle. 

 

Unnerved, Merle cocked his head. 

“Uhh, what’s up buddy?” 

 

Magnus crossed his arms in front of him, a judgmental shadow cast across his face. 

 

“How come you never pet my head before I was a deer?” 

 

Merle chuckled. 

“Hell, if you want me to, all ya gotta do is ask.” 

 

Taako leaned away from them a bit, pulling a disgusted face.

“Fucking. Ew.” 

 

 

 


	54. This is the Way the World Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Fifty Four

 

The planet they ended up on that year was heavy with oxygen. Too much oxygen; enough to cause nausea, vertigo. Enough for it to be fatally toxic after extended periods of exposure — except for when there were lightning storms. It was an audible change; instead of hearing thunder, there was the massive sound of a vacuum being created, like repetitive short bursts of a recording of wind played backwards, a sharp and warped inhale as loud as the entire sky could hold. The oxygen levels dropped during the storms, but not too much, and made it safe to travel outside. Safe aside from the lightning as it snaked through the air to connect and then bounce off of the ground made of black, sparkling, fluffy dirt that looked like it had just recently been dug up. When they went out into the world, their footsteps left deep impressions, and the places where the lightning struck created flat starburst-shaped black glass plates. The ground there showed vividly every place it had been disturbed even the slightest bit, wearing dramatic visible scars as if it wasn’t made to be interacted with at all. 

Waking up in the middle of the night from the inverted, rushing sounds of a nearby thunderstorm outside, Lup breathed in steadily and felt a peaceful and hopeful lightness rising in her chest. She looked over at Barry, still sleeping. She didn’t want to wait until the morning to talk to him. 

“Hey, babe.” 

Barry made a muffled sound as Lup curled her fingers over his shoulder before leaning in and hovering over his ear. 

“Bearrr.” 

“Hmmf?”

Lup quickly kissed him on the cheek as soon as he started showing signs of waking up. His eyes drearily opened and in the unsteady bursts of light coming through the open space of the sliding window shutter, he saw brief flashes of her eager face all lit up with silver. His breath caught in his throat and he felt like he was dreaming still, forgetting to breathe as he was greeted with the sight of eyes so full of love. Lup was propped up on an elbow, the sheets sliding off of her shoulder, and she looked down at him with a relaxed, lovestruck smile as she watched him waking, in awe of the look on his face when he saw her. She watched him steadily in the dark, while he only caught bright glimpses of her whenever another bolt of lightning hit the ground close enough outside to light up the room. 

She brushed the hair across his forehead back before letting her hand settle on the side of his neck, softly moving down to rub at the space on top of his shoulder where she knew he held most of his tension. He reached up and sleepily tapped the tip of her nose while he smiled that goofy smile that always made her laugh. He found his breath as he quietly laughed back, and he propped himself up on an elbow, bringing himself face to face with her. She leaned in close, settling her nose near his and closing her eyes as she spoke softly to him.

“Wanna go to the deck?” 

“In the lightning?” 

Lup grinned. “Yeah.” 

Barry smiled and leaned up to kiss her forehead. 

“Yeah, let’s do that.” 

 

On the deck, they stood at the far end and watched arcs of electricity shatter the sky, creating veiny patterns of blue and white light. Somewhere out in the distance, the bolts were hitting the soft, shining black ground and burning the soil into plates of glass in explosive patterns as they did.

Lup leaned on the railing and thought about the black glass they had seen on the few short expeditions they had been able to go on. 

“Do you think we could try to find one of the smaller ones and take it?” 

Barry leaned onto the railing next to Lup, putting an arm around her as he did. 

“They are pretty neat looking, so I think we probably have to-” 

Barry stopped short as an idea hit him. 

 

“What’s up, babe?” 

 

“Uh, n-nothing.”

 

Lup reached over to Barry’s hand hanging over her shoulder and slipped her fingers through his. 

“It’s  _ not  _ nothing.”

 

“Yeah, but…” Barry squeezed her hand. “Uh, it’s something that I want to, uh… something that-”

 

Lup lightly gasped and bounced on her heels a bit. 

“It’s a surprise.” 

 

“Hah. Yeah.” 

 

Lup looked out at the lit up landscape, listening to the waves of warped wind as oxygen was sucked out of the air with electric force following each flash by a few seconds. 

“That you thought of because of the lig _ htni- _ ” Lup’s words were drowned out towards the end of her sentence, the sound of her voice sucked away by the pulsing absences of noise created by the vacuumous replacement for thunder. 

Barry smiled. “Maybe.” He took his arm from around her shoulder and turned to her, and she leaned away from the railing and turned to face him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and set his forehead against hers. Instead of saying anything, she relaxed into his embrace and put her arms over his shoulders. It started to rain, but they stayed. They breathed in sync and after a quiet moment, they silently, mutually decided somewhere along the way to gently sway together until they were slowly dancing with each other, out on the deck of the white-silver ship illuminated by the storm, with no noise except for the light sound of raindrops and the occasional rush of wind howling backwards, and soon, their hair and clothes were soaked through with warm rain. 

 

***

 

“Hey bud, could I get your help with something?”

Barry walked into the common room and sat across from Taako, his voice excitedly buzzing around the edges. 

 

Taako peered up from the pages of the book that he was nose-deep in.

“What’s up, my man?”

 

Barry leaned in, setting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands in front of himself. 

“Well uh… so, for Lup- I had this idea.” 

 

Taako set down his book and looked up at Barry, suddenly more interested.

“Oh hell yeah, what kinda sappy grand gesture were you thinking?”

 

Barry laughed nervously. 

“It’s uh… I mean, it’s not really big. More like a souvenir, I guess.” 

 

Taako rolled his eyes.

“Pfft. Yeah, don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sure  _ that’s _ going to take you like, another hundred years _.” _ He eased back into the couch cushion and reached to pick his book back up. 

 

Barry’s breath hitched, not knowing - but  _ maybe  _ knowing… actually, maybe definitely knowing what Taako meant. But, it wasn’t the time to get into a whole thing with him about that. 

“I just… I need you to shrink something, if you could?”

 

“Sure, easy ‘nuff. Lemme know when you need me.” 

 

“Well. We could go now?” 

 

Taako sighed and set his book back down.

“Fine, fine. Only because it’s for Lup. Lead the way, Barold.”

 

***

 

Hands on hips, Taako looked around at the shattered glass floor made from what must have been a particularly heavy storm. 

“Pretty cool, actually.”

 

Barry walked carefully into the sinking ground between the sharp glass plates. 

“Yeah, but we don’t have long.”

A thunder storm had just ended, leaving the air a bit more balanced in its wake. But it never lasted very long. Barry could feel his breathing starting to go strange already. 

He looked all over for which lightning-struck firework of black glass on the ground was the most beautiful, the most interesting, the most dynamic. He eventually found the perfect one; more perfect than he imagined he would have found. The pattern of it was chaotic in the most gorgeous way. It looked like strength and like something tempered under great pressure, turned only softer and more beautiful somehow, delicate and dangerous with soft and jagged edges. He quickly turned to Taako.

“Hey, can uh -- can you do this one?” 

 

Taako stepped over carefully, making sure not to catch an ankle on one of the rays of sharp glass, and took a look at the exploding star-like shape that Barry had found, five feet around at least. He nodded, mostly to himself. 

“Yeah. That one is perfect.”

 

As Taako worked at shrinking down the glass plate, he found that the pieces were flat only on top, and that they actually ran a few feet into the ground with angled, lightning patterned roots, making them even more beautiful and interesting than expected. 

 

Barry got caught up in looking out into the distance while Taako worked. The flat expanse of dark land and the piercing blue, cloudless sky made it so that he could see seemingly forever. He took in the sight of the blinding and gorgeously made glass ground that extended from his feet to the skyline, all created with dangerous, striking, elemental force. It made him think of Lup’s power, and it inspired him. He felt a connection with the predictable patterns and the chaos alike, a connection to the landscape that was the product of a natural scientific process, the exchange of power creating a transformation from one element to another. He marveled over the fact that it was light that changed the surface of the world from something soft to something dense and sharp and hard; from innocuous to dangerous. From raw, loose material into something tempered, something strong, made from a ground that was so easily disturbed and impressed upon, so readily changed and harmed. Just like how he had once been so soft and so easily stepped on and worried and stressed by every emotional and physical touch, how in the past, every interaction left deep grooves in him. He thought about the storms, the shape and the light and the crackling that happened just before all sound was sucked from the air, leaving nothing but intimidating silence, the loudness of absence, the power of wordlessness. He thought about that dangerous brightness tearing through the sky all around them when he stood on the deck with Lup, how he watched as her face lit up with each strike of lightning, making it easier for him to see the vision of his love. In bursts, it rid the world of darkness, chased out the deep night and exposed everything in a forceful second of light brighter than day -- the light that he needed in order to see, a light to take away the oppressive dark. In the danger there was a comfort, a sign of safety; it was the same way that  _ she  _ lit up the dark. 

That was it. That was where he wanted to find power. That’s what made sense to him. Lightning, electricity, and the kind that was linked to the absence of noise instead of booming thunder, heralding its approach not with raucous clamor, but instead a vacuumous space, the noiselessness of sound being pulled out of the air, quieter than a whisper. 

He was interrupted from his thoughts when Taako walked up behind him and set a hand on his shoulder. With his other hand stretched out, he showed Barry the gleaming black star, flat on one side and the other side shaped in an uneven dome, radiating jagged spikes, like a heavy root mass from under a tree if it were made of lightning-shaped crystals rather than woody tendrils. 

“Gotta admit, it’s pretty cool. This is, uh…” Taako let his hand fall from Barry’s shoulder as he regarded the gift in his hand. “It was a good idea. Lup is gonna like this.” 

***

 

Lucretia stared out at the world from the end of the deck, sitting in a chair with a journal resting in her lap. They had traveled hundreds of miles over the surface of that planet, and it all looked the same. The same, even though every inch was unique. The way that the world showed the marks left on it were so significant and deep, and it was all so sensitive that you could tell exactly what each mark was from. The lightning, one of their footsteps, the force of the ship landing. Even the wind that the ship created as it sailed miles overhead etched a river-like groove in the soil as they passed over it. 

She had spent the past hour agonizing over what she should even write about. There was the appearance of the planet, there was every single thing that they did every single day, whether it seemed important or not. But really, what mattered? What was the detail that would ever mean anything, help anything -- what was worth her time, what was worth the ink, the paper? She had written so much, and she wasn’t sure what any of it had done, what it might ever do. It was just… all that she  _ could  _ do. She had some magical prowess, though it rarely ever came into play. She had acquired the basic survival skills they all had, she knew how to fly the ship, she… she knew all kinds of trivia about everyone, all of the details that might mean something, someday, if they ever got to stop, ever got to stay somewhere where they could tell stories to people that would still be around after a year. 

But, what did their memories mean if they went on forever as they were? Why did it matter what Merle’s laugh sounded like in detail if they heard that same laugh for forever, for eternity? Did she really need to note every different type of smile that Lup had; the one for when she was unsure but wanted to be strong, for when she was really happy, the one for her brother, the one for Barry… and what about Barry’s eyes lighting up when he had an idea that he was excited about, or the sound of confidence in his voice when he approached them all with some new bit of information -- the confidence that he didn’t hear himself when he spoke. Or Taako’s ever-expanding lexicon of slang and technical terms alike, collected from every planet with a language to speak of, his impressive menagerie of knowledge and skills. And then there were already pages dedicated to every living thing that Magnus fell in love with, every moment of his doubts coupled with how much he encouraged them all, how he refused to ever let them doubt themselves. And every good and bad moment that Davenport had with all of them, his hard decisions, his moments of remembering who he was and where he stood with all of them, and the times where he was vulnerable and the different ways that they appreciated and loved him. It was all written down. But what would any of it ever mean if they continued on as they were? 

How many times could she possibly write about the same things? Until there was no more room in the ship to hold her journals? Gods, the shelves she had filled already… and what use was any of it? Was she… was she the most useless one of them? In the past, Merle had the most trouble contributing consistently, but he also was the least concerned of them with making sure that he was doing so; he didn’t stress easily, and that was helpful to all of them in its own way, whether he intended it or not. But then, he started visiting the Hunger in parley. For over twenty years, he had an extremely important job, an opportunity in cracking their situation. Lup and Barry were always getting stronger and smarter, and even more so together. Taako was constantly sharpening up, and Magnus and Davenport had the same jobs as always, but everyone  _ needed  _ them to be consistent; they were rocks of the team. Her job was the same, too… but was it needed? And with each passing year, was it needed even less? 

She knew that she would be lovingly chided if she brought any of those fears up with the rest of them. They would assure her that she was important, that what she did was necessary, that they appreciated what she did. Of course they would. And they would mean it, she was sure -- but even if they felt that way, even if they meant it, was it really true? She didn’t feel like it had helped much yet. Maybe it helped to orient them sometimes; it gave them a way to confirm things that had happened, to look for patterns, to keep their memories of worlds past straight. But that wasn’t going to change anything on a grander scale. That wasn’t going to defeat the Hunger, that wasn’t going to find them a home, that wasn’t going to bring things to a conclusion. If anything, it only highlighted how long it was taking them to change anything, and how much longer it might continue to take them. 

 

***

 

Shirtless in his room, Barry looked himself over in the mirror and felt a quiet happiness in finding the ability to admire himself. He hadn’t necessarily had a negative opinion of his looks in the past; it was more of a resigned acceptance. He just wasn’t very concerned with appearance and had never really thought about his own very much. It didn’t mean a whole lot to him; he had plenty of other things to pay attention to, but that’s not to say that he wasn’t aware of the fact that he wasn’t what the average person would consider to be their cup of tea. But that didn’t matter anymore. She made him feel happy about his body. It was the body that Lup loved, the body that got to hold Lup, the body that she pressed herself against at night, the body that she wrapped her arms around and snuggled into while sighing and telling him how comfortable and warm he made her.

The most significant times in the past where he had felt bad about his body were when he wished he could just… do  _ more. _ It had been when he looked at Magnus and saw someone who could protect their family in a direct, tangible way, a way that had immediate results. Years and years before, when he used to daydream about fighting alongside Lup, about being more for Lup -- those were the times where he bemoaned the state of his body and mourned the fact that he would never be able to change it more than whatever he could accomplish in a year. But since then, he had developed a love for his body through Lup’s affection, and modesty wasn’t such an important point for him anymore. That body in the mirror --  _ that  _ was the body that Lup loved, the body that was used to express love to Lup, the vessel that his heart and mind worked through and controlled in order to touch her and see her and warm her when she was cold. Why would he cover that up or be ashamed or embarrassed? There was no room to be self conscious or hung up on himself in any way when he was existing for and with Lup. And not only that, but he felt free to actually like his body, to be happy with it exactly as it was. There was no reason to feel anything other than complete confidence. Because  _ Lup loved him. _

But, even as he admired the body that Lup loved, he also knew that it didn’t matter. He could be in any body, she could be in any body -- their love for each other was etched into their souls, impressed into the pulpy flesh of their hearts, marked on the brain. Even deeper than that; it felt like it resonated outwards from the core of his bones, like even if his heart were cut out it couldn’t eradicate a single trace of his love for her. 

His existence was dependent on loving her. He existed to love her. And her loving him back was the most basic truth, the most infallible fact; the glue of the universe. Where he once thought their love to be impossible, he knew it instead to be impossible for it  _ not  _ to exist.

Lup knocked on his door and he didn’t scramble to grab a shirt, he didn’t panic or get inside his own head. His heart still raced and he felt his face flush, but that was only because he knew that he was about to see her. He opened the door and she leapt at him without hesitation and circled her arms around his neck. She pushed the door shut behind her with a kick of her foot, and they stumbled, laughing, falling onto his bed. 

 

***

 

“Hey, hey.” 

Lup poked at Taako’s shoulder repeatedly as they sat in their bedroom. He was almost finished working on braiding her hair and was at the tail end of the braid which gave her enough slack to be able to turn around to face him.

“Yeah, what is it?”

 

Lup laughed with both of her hands over her mouth, turning red. 

“Did you know…”

 

“Oh fuck, not agai-”

 

“No, no Ko, it’s something else.”

 

Taako sighed, sounding deeply exasperated.

“But is it really, though?”

 

Lup nodded with confidence.

“Yes, absolutely.” 

 

“Because,” Taako brusquely tied up the end of Lup’s braid, making intense eye contact with her as he did so. “If it’s you saying-”

 

“Shh, shh. Did you know…”

 

“I  _ swear,  _ if you-   
  


“Ko… Ko,  _ did you know _ that-”

 

“If you fucking-”

 

“Did you know that Barry is my  _ boyfriend?”  _

 

Taako reached over to pinch Lup on the arm and she batted his hand away, exploding with self-satisfied laughter. 

 

Taako huffed as he drew his arms in. 

“No, you know what, this has been too many times now; pinching isn’t enough obviously.” 

He went at her and hooked an arm around her neck, trying to get her in a headlock so that he could muss up her hair, even though he was the one that had spent so much time on making it look perfect. But, she anticipated his move and flipped it on him, catching his arm before he could get it all the way around her and using her hold on him to knock him off balance, throwing him back onto the bed, near enough to the edge that he almost rolled off. 

 

Taako threw a hand onto his chest as if he were about to have a heart attack from the incident. 

“You’re trying to kill me! My own sister!” 

  
  


“Well,” Lup ran her hands over the top of her head, making sure that everything was still in place.  _ “You  _ tried to mess up my hair. You would’ve done the same.” 

  
  


“...Yeah, you got me there.” Taako rolled away from the edge of the bed and onto his stomach. He reached over to the nightstand for a book, acting as unaffected as he could. 

 

“Oh yeah, speaking of  you and your insufferable glee, how did you like the thing?” 

  
  


Lup raised an eyebrow. “What… thing?” 

  
  


Taako’s head dropped face-first into the pages of his book before talking through exasperated breath, his words muffled. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake, do you two just like,  _ get off  _ on taking forever to do  _ anything?”  _

 

A smile slowly spread across Lup’s face, wondering what Barry had planned. She wasn’t going to admit to Taako that sure, building anticipation for romantic or cool or fun stuff was -- nice. Not everything had to be immediate gratification; though that was fun in its own way, too. Taako raised his head only to catch her blushing, and he rolled his eyes. He was happy for her, but that wasn’t going to stop him from periodically giving her a hard time. 

 

Lup decided that she wasn’t going to say anything to Barry; she was going to wait, excitedly, to see what it was. If Taako knew about it, that meant that he either got his help or his opinion on it, which was already enough for her to feel a deep appreciation for whatever it was that he had for her. She knew that Barry knew enlisting Taako’s help was a step towards making something perfect for her, and it only made her more excited for whatever it could be. Of course, she would love anything he did for her, but -- it wasn’t even the things that he did, but the way that he went about doing them. The care, the attention, the thoughtfulness -- the everything that Barry did that made her love him so damn much. She fell back into the pile of pillows and scrunched up blankets behind her and squealed. Taako slammed his book shut. But, he didn’t even know what to say in response to hearing her make that kind of noise, and he ended up just staring at her with his mouth hanging open and his eyebrows fixed in a combination of incredulity and mock anger. 

  
  
  


*******

  
  


The final storm of the year was the most intense. It was as if the planet could feel its impending end and was exerting its last bit of strength in a show of non-stop frenzied streaks of sawtoothed bolts of light, turning every inch of ground that it could into a mirror. A mirror that was about to reflect the horror of insatiableness-made-sentient that was at its front door. 

 

Lup looked out of the window at yet another world they couldn’t save. But, at least there was no life there; not any that they were able to find, anyways. She felt Magnus set a heavy hand on her shoulder as he walked over to look out the same window, even though he could barely make out anything other than the steady pattern of darkness broken by lightning. Taako hung back on the couch across from Lucretia as she wrote down every final detail that she could before they were torn away; the process of being put back together in their recorded state was sometimes a bit disorienting and she needed to make sure she got the last bits down while she was still sharp. Taako just didn’t want to watch; he had seen it enough times, he knew what it looked like, what it felt like. Merle… wasn’t there. But at least he had the patience that year to have only left them recently. Davenport stood white-knuckled and with gritted teeth at the wheel as always, expertly piloting them out and away from the planet, from the oozing blackness. And Barry held Lup’s hand and contemplated the Hunger. He thought about the last time he had survived until the end of the year before being killed by the Hunger itself. He wondered if there might be any use in doing that again, and maybe paying more attention. Maybe there would be something to find out within the cold pull of darkness, the feeling of being desaturated, of being undone in a manner that felt like the complete opposite of being undone into strands of light. He had noticed more and more about how the process of regeneration felt over the years; it would stand to reason then that that would hold true for feeling death by the Hunger. 

 

It was coming earlier. But it looked the same. That time, there was something especially ominous about it coming while it was pitch dark outside, save for the flashing light of the storm that had conjured its own rolling black clouds. The electric veins hit the ground and created shining black glass that reflected the rolling white eyes drifting in and out of the Hunger along with the flashes of multicolored streams running through its dark fog. Everything that existed around them as they flew out was black ground and black sky, interrupted by pulsing fading veins of color like blood pumping through the Hunger, and the occasional flash of blinking eyes and arcs of electric currents hitting the ground, small and thin under the massive settling world-ender as it sent down dripping streams of cloudy ink that covered and drowned the lightning. As they set out, the sky and the ground were closing in on each other, making it difficult to discern one from the other. The furthering darkness made it one of the most difficult and disorienting navigations for Davenport; the columns of the Hunger were difficult to see until he was almost on them, and then an edge would be highlighted by a flash of light and he would be able to make out where the column stood in front of them, just soon enough to zip around it as they ascended. 

 

They heard the last gasping breath of the backwards wind from the vacuum created between the over-oxygenated air and the lightning. And as that last dull hiss faded out, the sound of the Hunger faded in, being the only thing strong enough to break the pulsing absences of noise in that world from the near non-stop lightning storm, the last storm. They were almost gone, and then there would be an empty hole in space where the planet that resembled a black hole itself once floated in the liquid of the universe. A universe that grew smaller and quieter every year, a universe that the Hunger intended to reduce to a whisper. 


	55. Mourning Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Fifty Five

  
  


She wished she’d been able to save him. But instead, she was going to have to live through four months without him. Four months without him planting a series of kisses from her forehead to her nose to her lips, running his hands up her neck to caress each side of her face before brushing a thumb along the edge of one of her ears as he did so. Four months without him working as hard as he could to help her in the kitchen when they made breakfast together, with her flitting between multiple tasks effortlessly and him trying so hard and adorably fumbling over things. Sometimes fumbling just because he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. 

 

Four months without his voice. Without his breathing as he slept. Without the way that he held on to her all night, even while dead asleep. 

  
  


_ dead _

  
  


She could hardly stand watching him being buried. But she did watch. His face was pale and still as the dirt fell over it. No smile, no worry, no surprise, no blush. She realized just how expressive he always was as she looked intently at his lifeless face. It barely even looked like him. His expression was never like that. Not even when he slept. She’d even seen him smiling a bit in his sleep before. And she selfishly wondered whether or not he did that before they were together. Once his face was entirely obscured by the dirt that Magnus sadly and sluggishly shoveled over Barry, Lup felt a sharp pang in her heart that knocked the breath out of her and made it feel like her chest was caving in. It sunk in that she wasn’t going to be able to look at him as he slept whenever she woke up before him for the rest of the year. That fact was true as soon as he had died but as that last shovelful fell over him, the finality of it was clear. She wasn’t going to see his face again until they regenerated. 

 

As she rapidly switched from emotional to contemplative to hollow, she had a vivid, unwanted daydream of being a widow, of having shared a life with him, but the kind of life that came to an end. The finality that was actually happening to her was only for the rest of the year, but in the moment it felt like it was going to be for forever. The shock of looking at one of them dead was still present, strong. She wondered at what point it was going to become easier, if they would some day get used to it, if it would mean nothing to them eventually. And what kind of people would they be then? When that happened to them, what else about them would be changed? Would their emotions be warped -- their morals, their feelings? 

 

Their love. 

 

She didn’t notice that Magnus was crying until she finally looked up from the fresh grave and saw him leaning on the shovel, head hung and shoulders shaking as he silently wept. And no one else was there. No one else was there to see Barry off, and they hadn’t even called in on  the stones yet. They couldn’t call because their voices were caught in their throats. Neither of them had said a word since it happened.

She felt a brief flash of warmth as she looked at Magnus. He cared about Barry so much. He wasn’t desensitized to death yet, either. She wondered if one day, he would be. And who would Magnus be then? A Magnus who  _ didn’t  _ mourn after burying someone… who would that person be? How different would he be in other ways? Would she see the same person when she looked at his face? More importantly, by that time, would she even care -- or would she be different, too... 

 

***

 

“Where’s my Barry?” 

 

Lup moved her hand behind her, rather than rolling over, feeling around for Barry. When she woke up, her back was cold without him holding her against himself. After there was no response and she didn’t feel anything, she sat up and blinked, her eyes still heavy with sleep. She didn’t want to get up yet; she wanted to lay in bed with Barry until they had to get to work. But he wasn’t there. Lup frowned and was about to get out of bed when she heard the door opening. 

 

“Wait wait wait, stay there.” 

 

Barry walked into the room, balancing two trays with plates of food and cups of coffee, focused on not spilling anything. Once he shut the door behind him with his foot, he walked over to the bed, smiling at her. 

 

“I thought it would be nice for our first breakfast of the year to be in bed -- and since I’m okay enough in the kitchen now to not piss off Taako, I thought I could make it for us.” 

 

Lup clasped her hands together in delight.

“Oh babe, this looks amazing… how long did it take you?” 

 

Barry shrugged slightly, trying not to jostle anything on the trays.

“I mean… not  _ long.” _

 

Lup smiled brightly, looking up at him as he stood in front of her while she sat up in bed. 

“You spent like, at least a couple hours on this, huh?” 

 

Barry looked at the floor and laughed as he handed Lup a tray. 

“Maybe, yeah. But, part of it at least was on what’s underneath your plate.” 

 

Lup looked at Barry and her smile got bigger and she breathed in sharply, suddenly alert and awake and excited. How did he still do that to her? He could so easily make her feel like a child waiting to open up a present; a feeling that she hadn’t felt for so long, not to mention one that she had only ever experienced infrequently within her and Taako’s rough life. She lifted up her plate and grabbed the folded piece of paper that was waiting there for her. She started to read the note that Barry had written her while he settled in bed with his own tray. As she finished reading, her eyes watery, he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek and she wondered how he was able to make her love him more and more, just when she thought that she already loved him as much as was possible for her to hold in her heart. 

  
  


***

  
  


After Lup and Magnus returned to the ship without Barry, after they told the others what happened, Lup sat on the edge of Barry’s bed. She held the get-well-soon card that she had made him so many years before in her hands. But she barely even looked at it; she just wanted to hold it. Why couldn’t he have just been sick so that she could sit by him and they could pretend to camp out in his room and she could draw a card for him. Why couldn’t he have made it back with them, why couldn’t she be taking care of him instead of sitting on the edge of his bed with a card held in her shaking hands. 

 

_ Was it my fault? It was, wasn’t it? Or, at the very least I could have prevented it. I wasn’t careful enough, I was distracted, I… _

  
  
  


She remembered how earlier that year, they were working in the lab and she had caused Barry to spill something. She had run up behind him as he was sitting at their work area, threw her arms around him, and started kissing him all over the side of his face. It was only a small bottle of saline solution, but still -- it could have been anything else. Barely any of it even fell out of the bottle, but it still gave her a flashback to the year where they had been so distracted with each other while looking through the electron microscope that a running test of theirs broke and spilled and filled the lab with smoke. She had promised not to get distracted after that, but there she was. And it wasn’t just her; he did the same things, as well. Just the year before, he had accidentally poured water into a beaker until it overflowed because he got caught up in looking at her, watching her work, still mesmerized by her every movement even after all of their years together in close quarters.

 

She let herself flop down backwards onto the bed, the card still in her hand. She closed her eyes and thought about that time in the lab with the microscope. It was so obvious in hindsight; he was telling her that he loved her. Showing her. And she had been so close to losing her hold on her restraint and kissing him. She was  _ so  _ close… she wondered what it would have been like if she had kissed him, if they had discovered their love for each other back then. Would he have jumped back in surprise? From what he had told her, at that point he was still so sure that she didn’t love him. Would he have stayed still and kissed her back? What would they have said to each other afterwards? How would the rest of that year gone? She wouldn’t have been upset with herself, she wouldn’t have lingered and put distance between them when they were in the caves. And he wouldn’t have watched her be swallowed up by a wall while he yelled for her, over and over. He wouldn’t have had to endure that. They could have been in each other’s arms instead. 

 

But then, they wouldn’t have had Legato. They would have still performed together, of course, and it still would have been beautiful and important. But, that year… it was dreamlike with how impossible it felt. It still made her heart feel full, created a lightness in her chest and a longing in her breathing if she even briefly thought about it. And what happened that year wasn’t just a moment; it wasn’t a sporadic confession or the impulse to kiss him. It was a year. It was  _ their  _ year. Something that they would have forever. The most euphoric start to their love, an exclamation mark at the beginning of their story as two people together. 

  
  


_ I couldn’t have been so distracted that I missed being able to prevent everything from happening… I don’t even think I really was distracted at all, I just -- gods, I just don’t want him to be dead, I want him here. Barry. My Barry.  _

  
  


Lup took in a deep breath and pressed her eyes closed tighter after feeling the pressure of gathering tears. Her fault or not, preventable or not -- it just shouldn’t have happened. He was dead and he shouldn’t have been and he should have been with her, how could he not be with her,  _ how.  _

  
  


***

  
  


“It looks like as good a place as any to check for it.” 

 

Davenport stood in front of the crew as they sat around in the common area. They had just landed near the next place they were going to search; a deep canyon filled with giant, glowing flowers. They were all solid green, from stem to petals, and they stood almost as tall as the canyon’s depth. The blooms burst open with the petals splayed out flat, nearly even with the ground of the cliffs above the canyon. It was a stark contrast to the rest of the world which was a fairly tame, mostly normal looking place with familiar sort of plant life; at least the same patterns and roughly the same sizes that they were used to seeing most frequently. It was something strange, and that meant that it was worth checking out. They hoped to maybe find something useful or interesting -- but they mostly hoped that they would find the light. 

 

They made plans after dinner about who would go and what their approach would be in their search. It was decided that Barry, Lup and Magnus would go, and they would start with a simple day-hike, see what the general layout was, assess any dangers, before they went out further, for longer. 

They planned on leaving in the morning, so that night, Barry led Lup by the hand out to the deck. A light rain had started under a full, bright blue moon. At the end of the deck, as their clothes got soaked, he pressed his forehead against hers and set his arms around her waist. She smiled and understood and set her arms over his shoulders. And they moved just the smallest bit, until they were almost dancing. And then, Barry led her into more of an actual dance; he had obviously secretly learned a few steps, some gentle, musical movements, and Lup smiled with her eyes closed, her head laying against his chest, her heart overflowing. She remembered the year before when they stood on the deck and sort of accidentally started dancing with each other, and she remembered how beautiful that world was. And then a much more distant familiar feeling took hold of her; the thought came at her with such vivid clarity, because she had worked so hard to repeat every detail to herself when it happened, not wanting to forget a second. 

She remembered holding onto him with her head placed in the exact same way against his chest, just not as tightly because he wasn’t holding onto her with desperation, like he had been that night long past. The way that they finally were, he was able to hold onto her tenderly, intimately, knowing that he could let go and she would still be there and that he could hold her again. But, in that memory, he held her so so close, and that time, everyone around them was dancing, but they weren’t. And she had nuzzled herself further into his chest and she told him that she loved him while he wasn’t able to hear her. So, she did that again, pressed herself close to him, feeling that same nervous warmth as before with the memory so clear in her mind, and told him that she loved him, saying the words to his heart rather than his ears. And the feeling sent a spark of familiarity through him, because of course he had committed that very same moment to memory, down to the sparkling feeling that the vibrations of her voice had sent in a warm wave over his skin -- even without knowing what it was that she had said. Though, in their current moment, there was silence outside rather than booming music, and he could hear -- could hear her saying that she loved him. He pulled away slightly and looked at her, saw her dreamlike smile, and wondered…

 

Her eyes dropped down away from his as she laughed. “Yeah, I think I forgot to tell you about that one.” 

 

“You -- wait-”

 

“I told you that I loved you. But, not really  _ to  _ you, I guess. More just, into your chest when you were squeezing me.” 

 

Barry let out a single breathy laugh of disbelief. 

“All the way back- hah, uh.” He looked down timidly, considering the new information. 

“I think I might actually be jealous that you got to say it. That must have been cathartic.” 

 

Lup smiled teasingly while she ran her fingers through his hair on the back of his head. 

“Yeah. It was pretty nice.” 

 

Barry smiled shyly, turning away a bit. She loved that,  _ loved  _ that he still did that. But then, he looked a little bit nervous, too, and he let one of his hands drop away from her hip so that he could rifle through his pocket. 

 

“Uh, so -- it took me a moment to figure out what to fix this to, because I didn’t just want to leave it loose, and I felt like a necklace or ring would be maybe -- kind of dangerous.”

 

Lup’s ears perked up and she held her breath as Barry pulled something shiny out of his pocket. It was a miniaturized chunk of black glass, exploding into pointed and intricately curved and angled arms radiating out from the center. And it was affixed to a thick metal pin. The kind that she frequently used to quickly pull back her hair in the lab, or any other time that she needed it out of the way. She exhaled and her loving smile deepened as she looked from the glass piece to his eyes while taking it into her hand. And she realized that it was what Taako had mentioned, and that Barry had enlisted his help in making one of the glass stars that she had talked about wanting small enough to reasonably bring with them as a souvenir. She reached behind herself and deftly wound up her rain-soaked hair with one hand while slipping the pin into the loose mass with the other, careful to hold it from underneath the glass star. With her hair pulled back and slips of it falling on either side of her face, she looked unbearably beautiful and he was drawn towards her as she leaned back towards him, placing her arms over his shoulders again. He kissed her at the same time as he replaced his hands onto her hips, until they were both smiling, their lips still brushing up against each other. And they continued dancing, even as the rain started to pour harder. 

  
  


They left early the next morning, and Lup left her pin on the nightstand by Barry’s bed, not wanting to take something so precious to her out into the field.

 

…

 

Deep down at the bottom of the canyon, Barry, Magnus and Lup made their way through the dense stalks, and as they did, they saw shadows darting around with alarming frequency. They seemed to always stay about the same distance from them, around twenty feet ahead. Even as the three of them advanced, they never got any closer to the shadows. 

 

Magnus leaned over and whispered to Lup without taking his eyes off of the shadows in front of them.

“Animals?” 

 

“Don’t know, big guy.” 

 

Magnus fretted over the uncertainty of the situation, nervously tapping along the handle of the axe strapped to his belt.

“They look… they- they don’t  _ move  _ right.”

 

Barry nodded, also not taking his eyes off of the dark moving shapes ahead of them.

“Kinda like their image is stuttering.”

 

Magnus looked over at Barry, eyes wide.

“Yeah. Like that. Not really moving, just -- changing the space that they’re in.” 

 

Lup exhaled lightly through her nose, trying to ease her own rising feeling of uneasiness.

“Do you think they’re even living things? They could be some sort of optical illusion caused by the bioluminescence, or-”  

 

The stalks waved slightly as the wind caught the blooms overhead, and they groaned with a deafening wet, crunching noise as they swayed back and forth. They held their hands over their ears, trying to block out the sudden onslaught of unpleasant sound. As the stalks complained under the force of the wind above, they saw the shadows change. Suddenly, groups of them came from both directions in front of them, rather than running in one direction at a time like they had seen for the last hour. As they met in the center, they seemed to crash into each other, at least from what the three of them could see with their view partially obscured by the giant, glowing stems. The dark figures grew into one large rolling shadow, spilling around the stalks in front of them, looking almost like a gelatinous mass, but made only of semitransparent darkness hanging in the air. They all stopped in their tracks and didn’t take their eyes off of the mass as it grew. They started to slowly back away, and seeing it rapidly growing in size and spilling through the stalks towards them, Lup grabbed at both Barry and Magnus’s arms as she took a couple of steps backwards. 

 

“Run.” 

 

And they all turned heel and dashed through the stalks in the opposite direction of the growing shadows. 

  
  


***

  
  


Lup was woken up by Taako. Blinking in the light that he had just turned on, she saw the blurry image of her brother through sleepy eyes. With the card still in her hands as she laid on Barry’s bed, it took her a moment to process where she was and what was happening. She sat up and realized that she was in Barry’s room and she wondered what had made Taako come in there. Then, she remembered that Barry was gone and that she had wandered empty-hearted into his room. She didn’t shut the door behind her before she climbed onto his bed and grabbed the card out of the drawer of the nightstand. Taako must have finally come looking for her, or just saw that Barry’s door was open as he made his way down the hall to their own room. 

 

Taako sat on the edge of the bed next to her. They sat in silence together for a while before he spoke. 

“I’ve been trying to think of things to help the time go by faster, whenever you feel ready to hear my ideas.” 

 

Lup softly laughed under her breath and let her head fall onto his shoulder. 

“Thank you. I think maybe I just need to work, mostly. Can’t be letting everyone down and slacking just because I’m sad over something that’s going to be fixed in a few months.” 

 

Taako put an arm around her. 

“You don’t need to minimize your feelings. If it hurts, it hurts. And no one is going to blame you for taking a hot minute to yourself.” 

 

“I know.” 

 

Lup closed her eyes and they sat silently for a while longer. Daylight faded and the small bit of sun that was streaming in from the crack in the shutters dimmed and disappeared, leaving only the soft luminescence of the single light that Taako had turned on when he came in. Something about it reminded her of the warm orange glow from years and years before when she had entered the lab while Barry was so deep in his work that he had neglected to turn on more lights. The low light made the atmosphere so intimate, and the conversation they ended up having was even moreso. She remembered settling her hand on the side of his face with her thumb over his lips to silence his nervous rambling. How did she not know then that she loved him? The memory of touching him like that, of talking to him so intently and full of meaning -- it was so burned into her mind that she could remember the exact level of lighting and could almost recall the temperature of the air on her skin, the scent coming from the kitchen, the sight of piles of messy papers, the focused look on Barry’s face as he worked. That memory was so much a part of her, and for her to remember it that way… it must have been deeply important to her, even then. In fact, she remembered immortalizing it that night, going over it again and again when she laid in bed that night. Thinking about Barry, how he sounded, how he looked, how he reacted to their conversation. Trying to figure him out, grasping at ways to understand him even more. Of course she loved him. She could have kissed him then. They could have been coming up on their fortieth anniversary. 

 

She could have kissed him or told him as soon as she realized it, or it could have been during the beach year and they could have spent that safe and perfect and happy year together. No death, no pain, no fear. 

 

She thought about every time that she could have, every time that she wanted to, every time that it felt like something might break, like something was going to happen. It was like she had lived dozens of lives with Barry, falling in love during adventures of every kind, during quiet moments, during leisure, during fun, during pain, during mourning. Like falling in love over and over, in different ways, on different planets, with different versions of themselves, twisted under the pressure of unimaginable circumstances and situations. All starting with grieving their world together. Or, more accurately starting with the promise of things to come, with the excitement of exploration, of opportunity. How different she was from then. She didn’t think that she would ever  _ feel  _ so much more, be so much more powerful and experienced, so versed in pain and empathy and desperation and triumph beyond what she had ever thought possible. And love. Types of love that she had never known before. Love outside of her and Taako. 

 

Loving Barry was easy. In the face of their difficulties, their trials and tribulations -- loving Barry was so  _ so  _ easy. It felt like it should always have been that way. It was baffling that it hadn’t been. That time in the lab together, the beach world, when she had comforted him in his room that first time, the time when he had fallen in love... when they learned the animal language together, when he showed her beautiful images through the electron microscope, when they went to bars together and drank and laughed, when he held her in his tent, when they died together while night swimming in a silver pool. It was all love, it had all been love, it was always love. Everything that had ever happened between them was a type of love. 

 

She loved him. And she was loved by him. And he wasn’t there. 

  
  


***

  
  


They ran from the shadows, and Barry started to lag a bit. Lup slowed down for him, not about to leave him behind, ready to fight off whatever it was chasing them if she had to. He looked at her with worry as he fought to run faster, knowing that she was slowing down for him. She knew that look, even if she only saw it for a second out of the corner of her eye. With the shadows encroaching on them, she did her best to shoot him a convincing smile and winked at him as she stopped and whipped around, her hands already lit up with fire. She hoped that he would keep running, but she was fully aware that there was a good chance that he was going to stop with her. Still though, she focused instead on the threat in front of her as she gathered heat in her hands. 

 

As the shadows rolled closer and closer, she steadied herself before unleashing a current of flame, crashing into the wave of tangible shadows. The dark mass stopped and lurched inside of itself and the shape of animals and figures shot out of it at random points, twitching before being absorbed back into the shadowy blob. It seemed to envelop the flames, expanding and almost losing its form as it did. It convulsed, drawing the shapes that looked like they were trying to escape back within it, and it swallowed the fire into itself, causing the shadowy creatures inside of it to scream in guttural terror and pain. And then, as it pulled back, the glowing flame that it stole away from Lup whipped around inside of the inky mass. Her hands still lit but hanging at her sides while she tried to assess what was happening, Lup took a short step back. Without warning, the massive shadow tensed and the surface of it rippled like disturbed water, and the flame that it had swallowed was shot back outwards, towards Lup and Barry. Magnus was further ahead; he had been in the lead and didn’t notice when the two of them stopped, but after hearing the screaming sounds, he turned around and could only watch the scene unfold from a short distance away. 

 

The fire came back out in a dense, concentrated stream like a thin spear, spewing in a long arc towards them. Instinctively Lup dodged it, and the stream of fire continued straight behind her -- and landed directly in the middle of Barry’s chest. And even though she had tried to grab at him as she dodged, she barely caught the edge of his robe and only succeeded in tugging his arm a bit before she fell to the ground. On her hands and knees, she saw Barry get hit and watched as a hole burned straight through him, the fire bursting through his chest and out his back. She saw his body fall as she tried to scramble back towards him, knowing that it was already too late to do anything. 

  
  
  


They had to run further. And Lup panicked, certain that she was going to get them all killed if she tried anything again. They came to the edge of a clearing and she waited for Magnus to be well out of the way before she turned and stared down the tumbling, shapeless pile of darkness. Magnus turned and tried to run back to grab her, but she whipped around and snapped “get back!” He knew that he had to let her do what she needed to do, and he retreated, watching with worry from the far side of the clearing.  

 

She burned up -- her hands lit and the flames licked up her arms under the loose sleeves of her robe, the inside of the material blackening. 

 

From the other side of the clearing, Magnus could only see the encroaching wave of darkness, pushing upwards and making itself taller, and the silhouette of Lup’s red robe with smoke billowing out from underneath and the hands at the ends of her sleeves glowing molten red and orange. He didn’t even see her move before everything was suddenly lit up, brighter than the first brilliant rays of sunshine in the morning, concentrated against the shadows spilling through the glowing stems - the green luminescence the blue black darkness the bright blinding light - an explosion, animals screaming, the massive stalks bending backwards as their outer surfaces were blackened… the watery tissue sizzling was the only sound after the fire died down. And then there was smoke everywhere, but the darkness was gone. 

  
  
  


They went back for Barry’s body. And she saw him, limp on the ground. Burned by her own fire. Magnus saw the hole in his chest, his heart burned straight out of him. It was horrible to look at. Horrible to think about. Horrible to know. Magnus felt the weight of it, too. It wasn’t her fault. But it was her power. It was a miracle that Barry wasn’t completely obliterated to ash -- it was only because she hadn’t used her full power and that it was then further diluted by the shadows absorbing and spitting it back that there was even anything left to bury of him. 

  
  


***

  
  


She could have just kept running. It wasn’t like Barry was about to be overtaken by the shadows; he was just going slower than herself and Magnus. She could have grabbed his hand, ran with him. She could have been more careful in how she attacked the threat. She could have told him to keep running, to stay back, to get out of the way. Or, if she hadn’t dodged out of the way… but, then she might have been the one dead and she knew that wasn’t a better option. How strange it was that the better scenario was for him to die, rather than herself. Because then he wouldn’t have to suffer without her. He’d be back with no time lost and he would be with her again, seemingly immediately from his perspective. And that was better for him. She just had to hold herself together. She had to wait for her Barry. 

 

She tried to be happy about the passing of the days. Every morning that she woke up was a day closer to seeing him again. But she only felt more and more drained without his touch to recharge her, without his voice to encourage her, without his smile to warm her. She leaned on Taako, who was happy to devote extra time to his sister. 

 

She would work, sleep, eat, and close her eyes while she spent time near Taako and she would try not to think of Barry’s smile, try not to think about how at that point in the year, his hair would be messier, his hands rougher, his love for her more fervent and pressing as it had become every year. He wasn’t there, loving her more and more and more, and the absence of that feeling was so present, so heavy, so noticeable. There wasn’t just an empty space; there was a lack of growth, a missed opportunity for development. She would have him back, but she would never have those four months of him making her feel more and more deeply loved and noticed and seen. Those four months would always be an empty space. A space full of potential that would never be explored. A space that would be lost to that planet, to the Hunger -- to Barry’s body, underground.  

 

Breakfast made her feel sick for the rest of that year. If only they hadn’t started it that way. Maybe then she could eat in the mornings. But that’s not what she wanted. She kept Barry’s note under her pillow and dreamed about the words on the paper, thought about how he must have looked as he was writing it, thought about his perfect, blocky penmanship and how especially careful the words looked committed to the paper that he tucked under her plate. She almost laughed about how she knew without a doubt that the letter she ended up with was the third or fourth version at least, that he wrote it again and again, fixing small mistakes, making the letters look better, taking out or adding a word here or there. All just to give her a short message that meant so much, that made her cry when she first read it, that continued to make her cry throughout the year.

  
  


Taako, Magnus and Davenport ended up coming back to the ship with the light late in the year. Lup smiled weakly and reached to take it from them so that she could get it into the lab. Taako laid his hand on hers before she could grab the box they had it stored in, though. 

 

“We don’t have a whole lot of time left here, anyways. You don’t  _ have  _ to work with it.” 

 

Lup smiled a smile that she was too tired to even try to pretend was real. 

“That’s fine, I’d rather keep busy.” 

 

Taako sighed and let her take the box. 

“Sure, okay. But you’re not hanging out in there alone.” 

  
  


Magnus and Taako spent time in the lab with Lup off and on. Taako was good at getting her head started on theorizing because he was the type to ask tons of questions when he was genuinely interested in something, and he also knew that it was the best way to distract her. 

When Magnus was with her, he was enthralled by anything she could tell him about her and Barry’s work. He never got tired of hearing about what it was that they did, what they had found out, what they were still working on. Magnus actually had a lot of good ideas of his own, coming into it with a fresh set of eyes, and he definitely had a lot of fun ways of shortening and simplifying theories and terms.

They didn’t leave Lup alone for the rest of the year, and she was able to put together a fair amount of notes that she was excited to run by Barry when he was back. 

  
  


***

  
  


It was the last week, which was as close as they could get to knowing when the Hunger would be there any more. Once it got down near the end, it could be any day within that last bit of time. So, she didn’t know how many more nights there would be without him. But it wasn’t going to be that many. She buried her face into her pillow. After a moment, she slipped her hand underneath the pillow, her face still planted in it, and felt around for the piece of paper that had become soft and worn over the course of the year. 

  
  
  
  


_ You are my sun, Lup.  _

 

_ You guide me, you tell me when it’s morning, when it’s time to wake up… you tell me when it’s time to be alive. You determine the passage of time. Time just doesn’t work without you.  _

 

_ When I see you after waking up, I’m reminded that all of this is real, that you’re real. I have always wanted to start every morning with you, and now you aren’t just with me in the mornings - you are my mornings. And no matter how many suns we see on however many planets, you will always be my only sun. I want to rise when you rise and set when you set, forever.  _

 

_ -Your Barry _

  
  
  
  
  



	56. After the Shipwreck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Fifty Six

  
  
  


“Yo, this is the shit!” 

 

Taako swung the short, rusted sword that he found in a pile of rubble wildly over his head. Magnus ran at him with another after snatching it from an open chest in the corner. They immediately fell into playfully sword fighting with each other, the clang of metal against metal echoing through the empty hull of the large wooden ship they were exploring. 

 

Finding another one, Taako quickly grabbed it up; it was much less damaged and its silver hilt was inlaid with small gems that glinted in the light pouring through the broken boards above them. 

 

“I have  _ got  _ to show this to Lup; she’ll flip for these. You guys keep fucking around here or whatever and I’ll be right back.” 

 

Barry laughed to himself, able to vividly imagine the look on Lup’s face while being handed a sword by Taako. Then, he cringed a bit at the sudden gut feeling that  _ someone  _ was going to lose an eye. 

 

Taako ran up the stairs and jumped off of the deck onto the rock ledge that they had used to climb onto the ship. He ran down the ledge and up the beach, struggling to go as fast as he could through the dry, heavy sand as his boot-clad feet sank with every step. The Starblaster was parked only a little further up the beach, and Lup was sunbathing on the deck when she heard Taako yelling from below. She rolled over on the blanket she had laid out, got up, and walked to the railing to see what he was yelling about. Looking down, she was treated to the sight of Taako excitedly holding up his arms with a sword in each hand. 

 

“LuLu! Gotta sword for ya!” 

 

“Shit yeah, bring it on up!” 

  
  


***

  
  


The previous day, the crew had spent hours chasing down the light before watching with disappointment as it fell far out into the ocean. Their chance at the light was gone for the year and all they could do was find different things to work on -- and they had to hope that the planet was uninhabited. So far, they saw no life, but they had seen evidence of life having once been there. There were no homes or cities or buildings of any kind, but the entire expanse of the coastline they traveled along was full of ships of every size and type, all crashed up on the shores in various states of disrepair. They were fairly old and some were more damaged than others; the one that Taako, Magnus and Barry spent the day exploring had at some point crashed into a rocky ledge near the shoreline that tore through one side of the ship, leaving a long, jagged line of open space along its massive side. 

 

After Taako left,  Magnus and Barry continued to explore the ship and found their way to what seemed to be the captain’s quarters. It was much larger than the previous rooms they poked around in that they assumed were the sleeping quarters of the crew that no longer lived there. It was much more well preserved, too; there was a desk that hadn’t accumulated nearly as much dust as the furniture and surfaces in the rest of the ship, and there were still mostly intact blankets hanging off of the bed that was secured to the wall with thick, frayed ropes. And on the desk was a book, open to a page near the middle, looking almost intentionally left in a way to tempt someone into reading it. Barry felt uneasy as soon as he spotted it -- but there was no way that his curiosity was going to let him pass up checking out an ancient book on a wrecked ship. 

 

Picking up the book and starting with the page that it was turned to, it was at once obvious that it was a journal. But, rather than being a log of daily events regarding the ship’s crew and their travels as Barry had expected, it was a very personal account of mourning and guilt and desperation; the scattered thoughts of a man grieving the death of his daughter. While Magnus circled the room, scanning the floor and rifling through drawers looking for anything that might have been worth taking, Barry became absorbed in the book. He turned the thin, tattered pages carefully and his eyes grew wide as he read the detailed story of how the man that the journal belonged to could not accept his daughter’s absence from his life. And that was when the long, internal dialogue explaining his grief turned into rambling about evil secrets, hidden powers, and how he began seeking out the counsel of powerful and dangerous people who directed him to search for a particular ring. The journal ended abruptly after a snarling account of the ship’s crew becoming uncooperative. He was furious that they were standing in the way of his goals with their demands and needs, and the energy of the anger was evident in the change of penmanship, of the way that the ink was carelessly splattered and how the pen had obviously been pressed so hard against the paper that the letters looked more like they had been carved than written. Barry slowly closed the book and set it back down on the desk, feeling much more uneasy than before. 

  
  


After leaving the captain’s quarters, Barry and Magnus wandered through the lower levels of the ship, the daylight pouring through the ripped open side lighting their way. It was eerily quiet aside from their footsteps as they walked in silence, taking in the details; the scattered items, the rotting art, the rusted door knobs. And then they heard wood creaking, and they were knocked off of their feet as the ship suddenly moved. On the ground, disoriented, Barry sat up and held a hand to his forehead, steadying his reeling equilibrium.

 

“What… the fuck?” 

 

Magnus had been thrown against a wall and slunk down to the floor, unable to stay on his feet. Panicked, he looked over to Barry questioningly. 

 

 “Maybe -- maybe the tide came in?”

 

Barry breathed in steadily, immediately tense. 

 

“But this thing was buried in sand; not to mention the rock lodged into the side of it. Even if  _ that  _ much water came in, there is just no wa-”

 

Barry was cut short as the wood groaned loudly, drowning out his voice. Over the noise of the old, waterlogged wood complaining under its own weight, they could hear the lap of violent waves outside, battering the sides of the ship. The vessel steadied a bit and they were able to get themselves upright and ran up the stairs to the deck. Once they were able to see outside, they found that they were sailing at high speed through a thick cloud of fog. They couldn’t see the shore -- they could barely even make out anything past the water immediately around them as they looked over the edge. 

 

“Fuck fuck fuck.” Barry gripped at the splintering wooden railing as he looked around desperately, hoping to see some sign of land, feeling almost ready to jump off of the side if he had to, no matter how badly that might end up for him. He was desperate to not be separated from Lup. As he scanned the deck around them, hoping to see anything useful through the mist, Magnus grabbed at his shoulder and motioned for him to look back down at the water. 

 

The sea below them started bubbling and filling in with shining black strands, rapidly accumulating more and more, blocking out the murky blue-green water. They heard a rumbling sound as something moved under the darkened water, rocking the ship even more. What looked like undulating, floating, thick streams of black hair made its way closer and closer to the surface, until all they could see was thick floating masses of hair. They heard a voice coming from under the water with the high, tinny pitch of a brass instrument, but filling the sea, drowning underwater, a voice larger than the air around them. Not knowing what else to do except to watch the changing water underneath them, they saw as the hair started to pull in one direction. Then, there was a line of white, an arc of paleness, and it widened and grew as something under the hair began to roll backwards. Soon, the features of a face were revealed; a face just underneath the surface of the water with the black hair rippling with increasing speed from its scalp. As the eyes flitted open, they glowed a deep blue through the bright, white eyelashes. The rays of the light was distorted and moving rhythmically as it passed through the water. The head itself was around half the size of the ship, and both Magnus and Barry were struck with a terror that had them planted where they stood, taking in a sight that they could barely process. The eyes glowed in deeper and deeper shades of blue, and they felt compelled to look into the eyes, to maybe even get closer… 

 

The sound of thunder announcing the appearance of rain clouds above the ship broke them out of their stupor and they fell back as the ship lurched to the side, causing them to be violently thrown towards the middle of the deck. Magnus hit his head against the base of the mainmast and the tinny screeching from under the water grew louder and more persistent as Barry tried to get onto his feet. The rocking of the ship wouldn’t allow him to though, and he ended up having to crawl over to Magnus. Feeling Barry grab at his ankle, Magnus shook his head and sat up, alert. Barry breathed a sigh of relief, as much as he could with everything happening; he had felt sure that Magnus was dead. Barry tried yelling over the sounds of the storm as rain started to pour on them, the water coming down in sheets, heavily enough to cause a deafening noise against the deck. 

 

“Let’s get downstairs!” 

  
  


***

  
  


The noise from the shore that the crew heard while out on the deck was a shockingly loud, grating sound; like the cracking open of a mountain. Davenport, Lup and Taako all whipped their heads around to look in the same direction and saw the faint, shadowy outline of the large carrack that Taako had just been exploring with Barry and Magnus steadily disappearing into the distant sea. Lup breathed in sharply. 

 

“Ko, please tell me that wasn’t…”

 

“Shit. Yeah, that’s it -- and unless they hopped off in the last few minutes, they’re both still in there.” 

 

“How?” Lup ran to the railing and gripped the top rail tight, watching the ship glide across the surface of the water; the ship that only moments before was lying on the shore, torn through by a sharp, rocky ledge. “How the fuck is it sailing?” 

 

Davenport ran to Lup’s side, staring out at the same upsetting scene. Then, he realized something and turned to Lup.

“I- I have that boat I found that I’ve been fixing up… I can probably go after them!” 

 

Lup breathed in slowly as she shut her eyes tight.

“Dammit. I just fucking got him back a month ago, and now…” Lup ran both of her hands down her face in frustration. She was not about to go almost an entire year without Barry. 

“Alright Cap. I’m coming with you.”

 

“What? Really?”

 

“Yeah, let’s do this, take on a little sidequest. The ship’ll be plenty safe with Taako, Luc and Merle. Let’s you and me go after these chucklefucks.” 

 

Davenport hopped away from the railing and stood straight, a determined and enthusiastic smile on his face.

 

“O-okay! Yeah! Let’s go!” 

  
  


…

  
  


Lup and Davenport ran full speed down to the shore where the sloop that he had been fixing up sat. With Magnus and Taako’s help a few days prior, they had gotten the ship upright and in the water. Davenport then tied it off to the sunken mast of a ship that poked out from the ground, the rest of it buried somewhere deep under the sand. 

 

Using his entire body weight against the coils of thick rope, Davenport was able to undo the knot he had made, freeing the boat. Lup was already running through the water, bounding onto one of the improvised rope ladders that Davenport had set up to access all the parts of the ship he needed to get to while working on it. 

 

“Alright, Cap! Just point me at what to do, and let’s get this bad boy going!” 

 

“Okay! First we need to get it rigged -- I’ll show you what goes up first, we’ll do a quick inspection, and then we’re gone!” 

 

Lup tapped her foot a bit with nervous impatience after she hurried to help Davenport dig through the storage bin for the rigging equipment. 

 

“Do you… do you think we’re gonna lose them?” 

 

“Oh, no, not at all.” Davenport spoke through a grin with confidence in his voice as he looked up at Lup. “This thing is going to be  _ fast.” _

  
  


***

  
  


“Okay, so Luc, you’ll fight whoever wins since we unfortunately only have two swords.” Taako handed one of his swords over to Merle while Lucretia looked on, hesitant and unsure about Taako’s plans for the evening. She rubbed at her right temple, already feeling one of her localized headaches developing. 

 

“If we did have another one -- I’m not sure how a three-way sword fight would even work…”

 

Merle shrugged, sword in hand. 

 

“We’re all smart cookies, I’m sure we’d figure it out.”

 

Lucretia winced at the sight of Merle carelessly gesturing with the sword loosely in his grasp. She spoke under her breath. 

 

“Probably at the cost of someone’s finger.”

 

Taako responded with a matter-of-fact tone, as if Lucretia should have known better. 

 

“Well  _ yeah, _ it’s not even a real sword fight if there’s no risk of finger-loss.”

 

“Very true. Besides we got me, your buddy Merle here!”

 

Taako shot Merle an accusatory look.

 

“Since when can you grow back fingers, because I’m pretty sure you would’ve been bragging about it if you could.”

 

“Well, I can’t do that. But I could stop the bleeding!”

 

Taako nodded.

 

“Okay okay, good ‘nuff. Come at me!”

 

Merle dramatically raised a hand behind himself and stuck the sword straight out at Taako with the other. 

 

“En garde!”

  
  


***

  
  


Barry and Magnus sat in the darkness, holding onto the support beams across from the bottom of the stairs, trying to keep themselves from being mercilessly thrown about as the ship continued to violently rock back and forth, the voice and the thunder and the rain still creating a grating collection of horrifying and disorienting noises outside. 

 

Barry looked around in the dark, hardly able to see anything, hoping that he might catch sight of something useful. He saw the especially dark space in the empty area underneath the stairs that led up to the deck. He thought about casting a light spell, but he was too busy holding onto the beam with both hands and trying to keep himself from getting nauseous. Then, he caught sight of something small glowing in the dark under the stairs. He stared at it, narrowing his eyes, struggling to see it better. He thought he was maybe able to see something behind it, something that the glow of the ember was catching in its faint light. Then, he watched as a cloud of smoke appeared from the red, floating ember. The smoke expanded and he saw a flash of a face within the white cloud. The features were hard to make out, but what he was able to see was a gaunt visage, long and narrow, with a nose that looked like it had been punched in again and again until it was pulpy and flattened. And the eyes were dark, with large circles underneath, and there was a series of reddened vertical scars running up and down from cheekbone to jaw. He watched as a smile curled up the sides of the face far too high. And it was gone as soon as the puff of smoke dissipated.

 

Barry continued to stare at the same spot, trying to figure out if what was there had just been an illusion, or if there was actually a person under the stairs, watching them. Either answer had him worried. 

 

The boat steadied a bit and Magnus sprang to his feet and took a wide stance, bracing himself, hoping not to get thrown again whenever the sea became angry once more. The space they were in went from pitch dark to dozens of candles flashing on at once, lighting up the room with bright fire. For a moment they could see that it was filled with chandeliers, both lit and hanging from the ceiling as well as crashed and cracked on the floor. Just as quickly, they all extinguished at once and there was darkness again. A flash of lightning outside lit the room again, the light from the bolts coming in through windows that weren’t there just a moment before. The space was brightened for only a second, revealing a series of green-blue faces, stuck in expressions of anguish, hiding in every corner of the room. Everything went dark again and things were quiet, even the storm outside had suddenly been snuffed out. 

 

Magnus continued to stand at the ready, sword drawn. Barry had gotten himself up and over to Magnus and was facing the other way so that they were standing back to back. They each summoned a small ball of light to check their surroundings. The light upset something in the dark and they heard a symphony of chattering noises, like an infestation of aggravated insects. Soon, there were swords all around them illuminated by their lights, and extending from those swords were ivory hands clutched around the grips and past that, pillars of bone with a ghostly aura surrounding them, and the swords approached them until the macabre faces of skeletal figures with glowing red eyes and mouths full of darkness were circling around them. Barry and Magnus drew closer together, back to back, before the apparitions came at them. Magnus pulled back and put all of his weight into swinging his sword in a wide arc, keeping the momentum even as it met resistance several times. He succeeded in crashing through the exposed spines under the rib cages of three skeletons, causing them to fall in half and hit the floor, turning into dry white dust as they did. Barry likewise in the opposite direction swung his arm from one side to the other, a ball of electricity in his palm arcing outwards into a slicing stream of raw static power, reducing a handful of skeletons to vaporous ash as soon as it touched them. They both couldn’t help but smile just the smallest bit; fifty years before then, that situation probably would have gone down very differently. But, they had become pretty unfuckwithable over the decades, and it showed. More chattering skeletons approached them. They held their ground and readied themselves for their next attack. 

  
  


***

  
  


“Fuck, they’re so far ahead of us.” 

 

“Yes, but at least we have them in our sights.”

 

Lup stood on the deck, stalwart and alert, intently watching the ship in the distance. They had seen it wrecked on the shore just earlier that day -- it was physical, able to be touched, to be stood in. And it was badly damaged from the rocks on the shore that it obviously crashed into. But on the horizon, it looked shadowy and insubstantial with a thick fog hanging directly around it, illuminated by a glowing light originating from somewhere deep under the water. 

 

Davenport squinted as he watched the ship in the distance, the heavy wind in his face. He had to yell over the noise of the whipping sails and the rushing current of sea air.

 

“There’s… there’s a lot of illusory magic around that ship.” 

 

Lup raised her eyebrows and yelled back to Davenport as she held tight onto the boom, readying herself to reef the sails in the heightening wind speed.

“Can you tell what it’s doing?” 

 

“Might be that the whole thing doesn’t actually look the way that it appears? Or it could be things in or on the ship -- too far away to tell for sure.” 

 

Lup nodded as she held on, able to see the ship in the distance from where she stood, the swirling black clouds raging above it in stark contrast to the fair skies they were sailing under. 

  
  
  


As they moved closer, the ship seemed to turn more incorporeal, and it began to veer heavily away from their path, turning more quickly and sharply than a ship of its size should have been able to. Davenport cut hard, steering towards the gradually disappearing ship. 

 

“Hold onto something!” 

 

Lup laughed as she grabbed onto the railing, almost losing her balance. 

 

“Fuck yeah, Cap’n!” 

 

In between her hair whipping across her face, she saw Davenport’s normally rigid mustache pushed back and frazzled by the wind, and the look on his face was one of pure joy. The situation was stressful, and it was going to be hard if it went wrong and they weren’t able to get them back… or even worse, if they got themselves killed in the process. But, holding on for dear life and watching the sea spread and turn frothy white around them while hearing the sound of the water tearing as the ship ripped through the tension and resistance -- it was the intoxicating type of rush that Lup savored whenever the opportunity called for such a performance. 

 

Closing the distance between the ghostly carrack and themselves, Lup helped to push their ship even further beyond its capabilities by summoning steady gusts of wind, alternating from hand to hand. Keeping a tight control over the power that she sent into the sails, they went speeding over the water faster than the boat should have reasonably been able to go, sometimes lifting out slightly and skidding and jumping along the surface. Davenport whooped at the top of his lungs and Lup cackled. The sea wind and the backdraft of her own evocated wind was causing her eyes to water and making it difficult to breathe as her face was battered mercilessly; it was thrilling. Davenport turned hard again as they came upon sudden patches of choppy waters that he deftly navigated around, keeping them from losing control. The sea grew angrier the closer they got to the ship ahead of them, surrounded by swirling black clouds of mist. Getting closer, Davenport was able to see the occasional breaking of the surface of water as foreign objects dipped in and out of the ocean around the carrack. 

 

“Looks like we’ll probably have company of some kind when we get there.” Davenport yelled as loud as he could so that Lup could hear him over the cyclonic combination of winds. 

 

“Well I’m fucking ready if you are!” 

  
  


***

  
  


They had gone five levels deep into the ship and Barry was starting to feel like it was going to be never ending. Magnus was insistent that with haunted things, there had to be some sort of mystery to be solved, some spirit to put to rest, or a puzzle to figure out. Barry wasn’t sure what else to do, so he followed along with Magnus’s ideas, even though he was a bit more than skeptical that they were going to find a clear answer to the nightmarish situation they were trapped in. 

 

Several more floors down, they continued to look in every room with an unlocked door, searched for keys to the ones that were locked, thumbed through every book, checked inside of every box and chest and drawer. Magnus was walking down a hallway, pulling at each light fixture, feeling sure that he would eventually find a hidden passage in doing so, when they both heard a painful, deep wailing coming from somewhere further down in the ship. Barry stood up from examining a loose board in the floor and looked to Magnus down the hall. 

 

“I uh… I don’t really want to know what that is but -- we probably should just go and see, huh?”

 

Magnus looked tense; in one way, he was enjoying trying to figure things out, but in another he was scared stiff every time there was another mysterious noise or apparition.  

 

“Yeah, I guess so…” 

 

Making their way slowly down yet another set of waterlogged stairs and into the advancing darkness, the howling became more persistent, more pained, until it was a constant wail of agony echoing through the black, rotting walls of the ship. They reached a spiral staircase next; it was such an out of place structure, and it creaked threateningly as they made their way down, the howling getting ever closer. Once  they were at the bottom, they were greeted by a long, featureless hallway. The wailing was definitely coming from the end, and it echoed through the hall, the noise building in intensity like winds before a storm. 

 

Around halfway down the hall, they came upon cells -- cramped rooms closed with iron bars, the floors wet and filthy. They passed dozens of them, all empty aside from trash and rotting debris. Until they came to one near the end of the hall, where they had almost reached the deep, howling sobs. The cell was exactly like the others, except that it had a coffin in it. A very small, beaten up wooden coffin; about the size of a child. 

 

The cell immediately after was where the echoing cries were coming from, but rather than being closed in by a wall of iron bars, the door was wooden with a window that was lined with much smaller iron bars. The cell didn’t seem all that heavily reinforced though; instead of locks, there was only a simple, small golden rod held horizontally by two brackets, one on the door and one on the frame next to it. It would only need to be lifted up for the door to open, and the bars of the window were wide enough for an arm to easily fit through and reach down to where the brackets held the rod. Or, even just pushing the door hard enough looked like it could tear out the fasteners or knock the rod out of place. 

 

As Barry examiner the door, a small, pleading voice of a man, raspy and weak, spoke to them. 

 

“Please let me out.” 

 

Barry tried to look through the window to see who was inside, but he could only see one foot sticking out from the corner directly to the right of the window; the only blind spot in the room. 

 

“Why… why don’t you just escape on your own?”

 

The voice on the other side of the door sounded heavy with tears.

“Because I am too weak. I can’t even get up to try.” 

 

Magnus started to move towards the door, concerned and sympathetic to the voice. Barry put a hand in front of him, leaning over and whispering, “This doesn’t seem right; what do you think?” 

  
  


They hesitated and both looked around and saw that just beyond the cell, there was a skeletal figure lying on the ground, stuck in the permanent position of reaching up for a lever on the wall. The fingers were just grasping the edge of it, reaching as far as their body would have allowed them to before dying and becoming a yellowed, dirt covered skeleton, forever trapped in some desperate final action. Barry inhaled slowly and held his breath for a second while he thought. 

 

“I… I think we should pull that lever.” 

 

As soon as the words left Barry’s mouth, the cell filled with the sound of hissing from multiple sources, as if the room was filled with hundreds of furious snakes. A guttural, grating voice backed with the noise and intensity of the wind, raised above the sounds of hissing and started screaming in layers and layers of voices, vicious sounding words in a language that they couldn’t understand. They saw the flash of a face zip by in the window, and it was more horrifying than any of the ones they had seen so far; a skeletal head, but with short horns and jagged points all over it, the cheekbones jutting out razor-like, and a thin, dark red skin pulled tightly over it all, looking desiccated and without any flesh underneath. 

 

Magnus jumped back from the cell with a surprised yelp, his heart pounding. He pushed past Barry in a burst of adrenaline, batted the skeletal hand away from the handle, and put all of his strength behind pulling the rusty lever. There were several clicks, and then a noise like the air was sucked out of the room. They saw flames rise up inside the cell and billow out of the window in the door a bit, blackening the ceiling. There were hundreds of screams from inside the cell, desperate and angry and agonizing all at once, bearing different emotions and different levels of pain. The fire was quick and intense and died down only moments later. As soon as the screams stopped and the fire subsided, Magnus and Barry felt themselves falling and were knocked breathless as their bodies dropped into freezing cold water. All traces of the ship were gone and they felt nothing but icy blackness. 

 

...

 

Sinking like a rock in the murky, rolling water, Magnus’s eyes opened and he saw the glint of something shiny slowly falling towards him… and then, as if it were intentionally seeking after him, a simple gold ring tumbled and floated down to him, falling perfectly in the center of his extended palm. He felt soothed, like he was going to be okay even though he was unable to breathe and unable to move more and more every second that he remained in the freezing ocean.  

 

Neither of them could see much from below the churning water, but they were at least able to see that the sky was no longer dark, but instead bright and full of sun. And then there was a shadowy silhouette outlined above them. And, just as Barry was losing consciousness, he heard the sound of something breaking the water’s surface and plunging towards him. He saw the glow of an illuminated face in the dark, small bubbles clinging to the surface of the skin, lips pressed shut, hair flowing and retracting and bursting into plumes of gold. He felt the sleeve of his robe being grabbed at, and then the sensation of being pulled away before his eyes closed and he fell into darkness. 

 

…

 

The first thing Barry felt as he woke up was sand scratching at the back of his neck. He started shivering as the wind blew over him and he became aware of the heaviness of his robe soaked with salty water. And then, he felt lips pressed against his own and realized that he had felt the presence of lips before then, while he was dipping in and out of consciousness for however long it was that he had been laying there. But they were different that time; they were gentle instead of pressing and frantic. The lips moved away from his own and Barry coughed. He felt his glasses being gently placed onto him, and the same glowing face that had dragged him out of the water was hovering above him -- his love, with the sun directly behind her, lighting her hair like fire from the back, her face shadowed and soft as she looked down on him. He coughed again, trying to get past the cold and raw trembling he could feel in his throat before speaking.  

 

“You saved me.” Barry smiled as much as he could before settling his hand on her cheek. Lup grinned at him and returned the gesture.

 

“I pulled you out, yeah, but Dav was the one breathing life back into you on the boat while I was fishing for Magnus. But then we switched out for the kissing part because I don’t share,” Lup looked over her shoulder and called out, “Sorry, Cap’n.” Davenport chortled as he leaned back against the rock he was resting against. 

 

“I know better than to get in your way, Lup.” 

 

“Oh, uh,” Barry raised his head a bit and gave Davenport a small wave, “thanks -- for that.” Barry let his head drop back down against the ground. “Now that I think about it, I do kind of remember something scratchy on my face.” 

 

Lup laughed, finding the image funnier than she should have. 

“Yeah that would be the fuckin’ caterpillar chilling on Cap’nPort’s upper lip.”

 

“Hey, guys?” Magnus was already sitting up, also resting against a rock near Davenport. He was looking at his hand with concern as he called out to them. 

 

Lup turned to look over at Magnus. “What’s up, bud?” 

 

“I … feel weird? And this ring is -- uh, you might want to look.” 

 

Davenport cocked his head.

“Ring?” 

 

“Yeah, it kind of just fell into my hand when I was underwater and I -- I put it on.” 

 

Lup exhaled heavily and dropped her shoulders. 

“Ah shit Mags, why would you do that?” 

 

“I don’t know! I was delusional and drowning and it just came at me and it was shiny and cool!” 

 

Lup went over to Magnus to take a look at his hand; the ring had dug into his skin, almost looking like it had formed a row of small spikes on each side that were clawing into his flesh. Up and down his finger the skin was turning black with heavy lines of dark blue forming underneath. She knelt down in front of him and took his hand in hers. 

 

“Well, bad news: this thing looks cursed as all hell.” Lup gently grasped at the ring with the tips of her fingers and tested moving it, seeing if it could be pulled or turned or manipulated in any way. But, as she was already able to tell just from looking at it, it wasn’t going to budge. 

 

“Well. Woulda been pretty cool if this hadn’t happened.” Lup rocked back on her knees and sat on the sand in front of Magnus. “Whatchya wanna do about this?” 

 

She wasn’t going to be the one to suggest it… but she trusted that Magnus would go to the obvious answer on his own. The area directly around the ring looked like it was developing into full-on necrosis, and the deep blue veins were steadily spreading down across the top of his hand as they watched. 

 

Magnus shrugged, much more casual about the scenario than anyone else would have been. 

 

“Guess I gotta get rid of this hand!” 

 

Lup sighed. 

“Yeah, I think so buddy. Doesn’t look like there’s gonna be time to figure out anything else.” 

 

…

 

When Magnus’s hand was unceremoniously removed using a hatchet from the boat, heated up with Lup’s flames, the ring at once retracted its tiny spikes and fell off of his finger. Lup grabbed it up from the sand and only Barry noticed her put it into her pocket. She looked over at him while Davenport kneeled by Magnus, bandaging up the end of his arm. She smiled at Barry with a small shrug. He loved her so much. He couldn’t wait to mess around with her to try and figure out what was going on with the ring, what it was capable of. And he knew that she was thinking the same exact thing and that her curiosity was just as ravenous as his own. 

 

***

  
  


When they all returned to the ship, Lup stepped inside first and saw Merle sitting in the common room with Taako. 

 

“Oh hey, fun eyepatch Merle. Really getting into the theme of things huh?”

 

Merle huffed.

“No. I lost a damn eye.”

 

Davenport was following behind Lup and came in through the door just in time to hear Merle. His face dropped.

 

“... WHAT.”

 

Merle shook his head while shrugging, his palms turned upward. 

 

“Hey, don’t look at me, Taako was the one who did it.”

 

Davenport’s shoulders tensed as he looked back and forth between Taako and Merle.

 

“ _ WHAT.” _

 

Taako let his head fall back onto the couch, annoyed and looking like he had gone over the same conversation with Merle more than once already. 

 

“I yelled out ‘taste my steel’ first, what more warning you want? It’s not like you didn’t have your own sword. Ain’t my fault you didn’t block.”

 

Merle whipped his head around to look at Taako, not hiding his annoyance. 

 

“Well I didn’t see you coming at me from the side like that!”

 

Taako snorted as he crossed his arms. 

 

“You can say that now, but that excuse doesn’t work quite as well back when you still had two eyes.”

 

“I leave you all alone for-”

Davenport stopped himself, suddenly feeling twice as exhausted as he had before he walked through the door. He glared at Taako and Merle before looking down and pinching the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. 

 

“I’m… I’m just gonna go take a nap.” 

 

“Coolsies, see you later Cap’nPort.” Taako looked over at Magnus as Davenport walked away. “Nice hand, or lack thereof. Sword related?” 

 

“No! A haunted ring,” Magnus said cheerily, almost looking proud. He winced as he accidentally brushed up against Barry while walking over to the couch to join Taako and Merle. Even through the layers of bandages, the slightest touch ignited the pain. Merle patted his lap as Magnus sat down. He laid his arm across Merle’s lap and let him get to work on doing what he could to minimize the pain and chance for infection. 

 

***

 

Barry tightened his arm around Lup as they sat on the couch alone late that night. She had her face buried in his chest as she curled up against him, her legs flung over his lap.

 

“I’m sorry, Lup.”

 

She nuzzled her head into him. 

 

“I know you are. It’s okay. It’s not like you knew that was going to happen.”

 

He smiled as he settled his chin on top of her head and wrapped his other arm around her.

“Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

 

“Hah, don’t mention it. Was pretty fun, actually.”

 

“Yeah, I’m maybe a little envious — a high-seas adventure with Davenport sounds like a blast.” Barry felt Lup lightly nodding her head against him.

 

“It was kinda great. I highly recommend it.” 

 

Barry scratched at the scruff on the side of his face.

“You think… you think he’d wanna go out on that boat of his again? It’d be kinda nice to sail around on something that’s uh -- that’s  _ not  _ haunted to get the bad taste of that whole thing out of my mouth.”

 

“Oh hell yeah, I bet he would want to, he loved that shit.” Lup raised her head up to look at Barry, meeting his eyes and running a hand through his hair.

 

“Maybe uh… maybe wait for a bit, though?”

 

He drew her in closer and settled his forehead against hers.

 

“Of course. I’m not going anywhere without you for a while. Hope that’s okay.”

 

Lup smiled and quickly kissed him before uncurling from his lap and slinking off of the couch to stand up and stretch.

 

“Hmm, does that mean you’re gonna follow me to the shower right now?”

 

Barry looked up at Lup, his eyes just as full of love and longing for her as they had been every day for the past half of a century. 

 

“Um. Yes. Definitely.” 

  
  
  
  



	57. Become a Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Fifty Seven

 

It was rare, but Barry had felt anger before. Just then though, it was something much, much deeper. Enough that it was overriding any trace of fear or self-doubt or hesitation. In that moment, he felt more capable, determined, strong than he ever had before. He had to be. Because he was not going to let this fucking happen. 

Maybe it was more than anger. Maybe it was rage. 

 

He felt energy gathering in his fingertips. Numbing, but also sharp and painful. There was Lup. Incapacitated. In pain. It wasn’t even a fair fight. Not that the thing cared. A hail of poisonous shards had scratched across her features, bloodying her face, one of them burying itself in her chest, near her heart. They had been out on a hike in the wilderness, quietly surveying, not disturbing anything. He could still see her breathing, though. She whimpered, a pain-filled noise that he had never heard from her before. And that was it. 

 

He stared into the yellow, lidless eyes, rimmed with shiny wet red flesh, protruding from a serpent-like head made of layers upon layers of sharp scales. The heavy scales rattled and clinked against each other as the beast vibrated its body threateningly, its mouth agape and filled with piles of wet, moving shards of glass; just like what it had spat up in a lethal shower at Lup. With legs that were feline in nature but on a scale that had the creature towering over Barry by a full two feet, it approached, one threateningly vibrating, heavy footstep at a time. He felt like his heart was stopped, but not in fear -- it was as though the anger surging through his body had crystallized into something so dense and powerful that it turned him to stone. He felt that if his heart didn’t stop itself from beating, the blood surging through him, boiled by rage, might overpower and kill him from every vessel in his body bursting at once. But instead, his eyes were steel and he stood motionless between the monster and Lup, lying on the ground behind him, clinging to life.  

 

His hands were shaking, teeth were clenched, his lips drawn into a straight line, his face expressionless. Had Lup seen him, she may not have recognized him because, in that moment, he was the antithesis of everything that made him  _ him.  _ All except for that strongest part of him; the part that loved. Because the love inside of him was so strong that it would make him do anything. It could even create something that didn’t exist, turn him into something that wasn’t who he was. 

 

The surge went through his teeth, causing him to grind them against each other, making a sound like nails on a chalkboard that echoed through his head and hurt the back of his eyes. But still, he was unblinking. His hands hung at his sides, his fingers in gnarled partly open fists, looking like he was trying to crush stones that weren’t there. Instead, within the space of his hands, there were dots of electric white circles growing as they were fed by streams of crackling static arcs. He saw the brightness taking over his vision as if it were coming from behind his eyes. The inside of his head felt hot. 

 

The thing came at him, striking with its long neck and leaping towards him, its claws outstretched with nails the size of kitchen knives. Immediately, it was inches away from Barry, enough for him to feel its breath and to see the inside of its drooling mouth lined by sinewy flesh, the shards inside buzzing and readying themselves to spit outward. He deftly reached out his hands, his fingers stiff, every joint locked as he continued to build up energy, electrocuting himself as he did so. He made contact with the monster’s outstretched, spread claws, shoving his fingers into the deep spaces of webbed skin. Stopped in mid-air during its leap towards him, it couldn’t keep itself from pressing its full weight forward into Barry’s lightning soaked hands. Through the flashes of light behind his eyes, through the red hot anger he was nearly blinded by, he saw the face of terror and pain in front of him, coming from the visage of something that moments before was poised and behaving as if it were the harbinger of terror and pain itself. It spasmed before every moving part of it froze and there was a deep rattling hiss of shock and agony stuck in its throat as each muscle was disintegrated by the nonstop, magical electric current that snaked its way through every vein, every nerve, every drop of liquid in its body. Not letting go even as the thing started to fall into him, he braced himself, his firmly planted feet carving deep grooves into the ground as he was pushed back. 

 

Readjusting his stance, he pressed forward and continued pouring his power into the monster, the crimson red fabric of his robe whipping behind him as he did, highlighted in strobed white flashes looking almost like it was waving behind him in stop-motion. He didn’t cease his onslaught even as his glasses shattered, even as he felt the thing’s sharp claws reflexively digging into the flesh of his hands as they convulsed and tightened. As the nails dug into his knuckles, the beast ended up only making another contact point to Barry’s power and the current was sent shooting through its claws and into the center of its bones before, with one final convulsion, it turned dark while shining wires of electricity crackled along its skin before it dissipated into ash. 

 

Barry’s hands were left blackened and bloodied. His heart started again and his body was shaking uncontrollably as he heaved and gasped, desperate to fill his lungs with air, doubling over, his throat tight and his teeth ringing with a pulsating pain.

 

On his hands and knees, trying to recover, his shattered glasses fell off of his face and to the ground. With how damaged his eyes felt, he wasn’t even sure if they would have helped anymore anyways. With the rage gone, the pain settled in more and more until it made it even harder for him to breathe. He pushed through the agony and was able to turn himself around to see Lup. She was breathing, but she was unconscious. He didn’t know whether or not removing the shards would be a good idea, and he wasn’t even sure if he could keep his hands steady enough to try. Shaking, he struggled to reach into the pocket of his robe and pulled out his stone. He was only just barely able to make contact and to give them an approximate location before he collapsed completely, face down, next to Lup. 

  
  


***

  
  


At some point, Barry remembered the taste and feel of dirt in his mouth. It was while he was being moved; someone’s arms were around him when he woke up, but he had only been awake enough to feel and taste dirt. He was slowly gaining consciousness, his eyes still closed, and the memory of that feeling was the first thing that struck him. Backwards from there, he remembered the fight, the monster, Lup being hurt- 

 

He jerked fully awake and tried to sit up but groaned in pain instead. He turned his head, looking around as much as he could, but his neck was stiff and surrounded by pillowy fabric. He heard labored breathing near him and he was only able to turn his head enough to see the blurry outline of Lup’s ear from the corner of his damaged eyes. She was alive. His panic was reduced by half just knowing that she was living and she was near him. He still needed to see more of her, needed to know how she was doing, what she was feeling, what shape she was in. He felt a dull flash, a pale echo of the same bubbling anger that had sent him into a rage like a storm when she had been initially hurt. If she was still in pain, if she was seriously injured because of that thing… 

 

He gave up struggling to move. Everything hurt too much and he already exhausted himself in just the couple of moments where he tried to turn to see her. Deflating with a long, defeated exhale, he relaxed into the soft mattress beneath him. His throat was tight and sore, his mouth was dry, he was barely able to work around the pain knocking around in his chest to speak — but he was able to struggle through getting out the words, “I love you, Lup,” before he steadily slipped into unconsciousness once more. 

  
  


***

  
  


Barry blinked in the oppressive light pouring onto his face as he slowly woke up, confused, disoriented. Again, he remembered what happened and panicked, turning his head as much as he could to look for Lup. He was able to turn his head more than the last time he was conscious, and was even able to slightly lift it, enough to see Lup lying on a cot next to his own. Barry flinched from surprise at the sound of Merle’s voice behind him.  

 

“She’s in a coma. Some sort of toxin in those shards -- I’m sure if you took it into the lab you could figure out more about it than me. And  _ you _ … I don't know what the heck you did to yourself.” 

 

Barry was able to sit up, finally. He hardly even acknowledged that Merle was talking; he could only focus on trying to get a better look at Lup. He realized that they were in the back of the sunroom — Merle had been working on them in the natural light with the plants as a comforting presence. In the blinding sun pouring through the overhead windows, Barry could see the fuzzy reflection of glossy leaves dappling Lup’s face with green tinted shadows. Leaning in closer, he could just barely see movement under her eyelids. He wondered what she was dreaming about. He hoped that it was something good, and not about her last moments of consciousness -- about being attacked. 

 

“Hey, you there bud?” 

 

Barry closed his eyes and shook his head a bit, trying to shake away the fuzziness before turning to talk to Merle.

“Oh uh, yeah, just…”

 

Merle set a hand on the edge of Barry’s cot.

 

“She’s okay. She’s just not awake right now.”

 

Barry nodded solemnly. He scanned the room, looking for the shape of anyone else who might have been there. 

 

“Where’s Taako?” 

 

Merle rolled his eyes a bit.

 

“He’s cooking. Honestly, it’s been hard getting him to take any time away from here at all.” 

 

“Yeah.” Barry held a hand to his head, suddenly a little bit dizzy.

 

“Why don’t you lay back down, buddy.”

 

“Y-yeah…” Barry started to lean back and Merle reached up to steady his shoulder, helping him ease back onto the cot. 

 

“What did you do, anyways? Taako said it looks like you got yourself ‘all fucked up on magic’.” 

 

“Yeah, I-I…” Barry looked over at Lup again, laying back into his pillow, his mouth slightly open, breath held, desperately wanting to see her move or open her eyes.

 

Merle gave him an understanding look. 

 

“You were protecting her. I figured as much.”

 

Barry nodded quietly, his eyes unfocused and bleary.

 

“Well, you did! She’s okay; or, she’s gonna be okay. We’ll take care of her, but you need to be taken care of, too. Alright?” 

 

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Merle.” Barry’s voice was flat as he remained turned away from Merle, staring at Lup. 

 

Merle kept his hand on Barry’s shoulder. After a moment of silence, he let his hand drop and started to turn around. 

 

“You’re welcome, I guess.” The tone in Merle’s voice was something bordering on bitterness or disappointment. Even if they hadn’t known each other for decades, it was all too easy to read Merle most of the time, mainly because he made damn sure to broadcast his feelings. 

 

Barry sighed as he turned his head around. “Merle, come back here.” 

 

Merle immediately perked up and turned back around to Barry and waited for him to speak. 

 

“I’m just -- thank you for helping me and Lup. I can tell that you did a lot of work, and I appreciate you trying to make me feel better about her being -- like this. I’m just really distracted. Don’t feel too great. And her…” Barry’s eyes drifted back to Lup. “You  _ know  _ I appreciate you Merle,” Barry tapped his fingers on the edge of the cot frame under him before he amended with, “but I know I have to actually tell you that, too.” 

 

Merle beamed at him, satisfied with his response. 

 

“S’no problem. I’m always happy to help! And try to quit your worrying, it’s not like it’s going to make anything better.” 

 

Barry closed his eyes. 

 

“That’s true. Thank you, Merle. Really.”

  
  


***

  
  


It was two weeks after the incident. Barry was out of bed and mostly better, though he had permanent damage in his eyes and nerves -- as permanent as things could be for them. Parts of his body were numb with only a vague, painful tingling sensation that he could feel anytime he bumped into something, which he did frequently; with Lup still recovering and unresponsive, he had been in a constant daze, and the damage to his eyes didn’t help. 

 

He sat on the edge of the retaining wall in the sunroom, watching over Lup. She was lying in the warm sun under the window where he had wheeled her cot to after laying a hand on her forehead and feeling how cold she was to the touch. 

 

Taako sat close next to Barry. They had spent most of the afternoon together, talking and watching over Lup, holding their breath at every twitch or heavy breath she took, hoping to see her eyes open. 

 

They were both tired; sleep had been hard without Lup to talk to, without their nightly ritual of summing up their days together, unspooling the good and the bad and leaving it all in the common room or out on the deck before turning in. Not knowing whether or not she would still be alive in the morning was unbearable to deal with each night when they eventually went to their rooms and tried to will themselves to sleep. 

 

Taako leaned his head against Barry’s shoulder and Barry blinked in surprise. It wasn’t that Taako was never affectionate, but it was rare, and it usually meant that he was feeling more sad or scared than he was willing to admit verbally. Barry quietly thought over the bit of happiness that it brought him knowing that Taako trusted him. He already knew that was the case, but… it was nice to have a reminder.

 

“I’m so fucking tired, Barold.”

 

“Yeah. Me too.”

 

Barry looked down at his hands fidgeting in his lap. “Hey, what if we uh — take the heater into the common room tonight and roll her in there? We could sleep on the couch.”

 

Taako looked up at Barry, looking the most energetic he had in days. “Shit, yeah. I mean… we can bring her back in here for the sun and fresh air in the morning, that’ll be fine, I think.”

 

Barry put an arm around Taako and he leaned into the sort of awkward side-hug Barry gave him. He closed his eyes and nodded, trying to press back any tears from collecting in his already burning eyes. 

 

“Yeah. It’ll be fine.” 

  
  


***

  
  


 “Maybe not the best way to get a break, but it’s still nice.” 

 

It was four weeks after the incident. Lup set her head on Barry’s chest as they laid together in his bed. 

 

“It really is.” Barry leaned down and kissed Lup on the top of her head as he continued to idly stroke her ear. “Though Davenport does want to get back out there. We haven’t actually lost anyone, after all. I’m sure he’s not expecting that from you, though.”

 

“Well he better not be expecting it from you, either.” Lup turned over and set her arms behind her head, flipping her leg closest to Barry over his, making sure that they always had some point of contact where they were holding onto or wrapped around each other in one way or another. “You can’t even feel half of your fingers. And I doubt you’d even be able to see the light unless you bumped straight into it.”

 

“Yeah. I guess.” Barry sighed deeply and Lup turned back over, flopping an arm across his chest. 

 

“I know that sound.” She tapped at the tip of his nose. “You better not be feeling like you’re not being useful, I swear. You went through some shit. And,” she leaned away a bit to point both of her thumbs into her chest, “you kept this girl alive. That on its own should get you some serious time off this year.” 

 

Barry laughed as he scooped an arm underneath Lup, wincing at the numb pain in his fingers as he did, and squeezed her lightly against himself. She turned back fully towards him and flopped her arm over him again. She felt his chest rise and fall as he sighed.

 

“I’m sure there’s at least  _ something  _ I could be doing though… I mean-”

 

Lup cut him off while tightening her grip around him; all at once both a comforting gesture and a warning, telling him to stop his line of thinking in its tracks.

 

“No. You’re staying in bed with me, at least for a bit. You’re all mine; Davenport can get you later. Maybe.” 

 

Barry closed his eyes and smiled warmly as he brought his other arm over to wrap around Lup’s back. He cursed the fact that he had lost so much feeling in his fingers; he just wanted to brush her hair with his hand, run his thumb along her cheek, and feel the ridiculously soft skin on the small of her back as they spent the entirety of the morning and the better part of the afternoon in bed together, resting and recovering in the comfort of each other’s warmth. 

  
  


***

  
  


Six weeks after the incident, Magnus and Merle had successfully found the light while searching through a vast marshland that was near their most recent parking spot. With the light in a box in the lab, Davenport was feeling antsy about making whatever progress they could. And Lup was trying to get him to reel it in a bit and be patient with them, and with himself. 

 

“But, Lup… we have the light now. I understand that field work would be too much, but lab wor-”

 

“Lemme stop you there, Cap’n.” Lup laced her fingers together as she set her hands on the table in between her and Davenport. “Barry can’t even feel most of his fingers; I doubt he could even safely hold onto stuff, let alone use any precision tools. And-” 

 

“But, you could-”

 

“- _ And,  _ he can barely even  _ see _ right now. He can keep me company while I do work in the lab for maybe a few hours a day, but he’s not fit to do any more than that. Besides, I know just as much as he does; we’ve been running these tests together this whole time, afterall.” 

 

“I know that, Lup, I’m not saying that you don’t, jus-”

 

“I  _ know  _ two heads and sets of hands are better and that we’re lucky to have the light so early this year, but I don’t know what else you want me to do, Cap. There’s not a lot to be done for that extent of nerve damage, and he’s still in some pain and definitely a hell of a lot of discomfort basically constantly. And if he catches so much as a whiff of you or anyone else wanting him to do more, you know he’ll push himself no matter how he’s feeling. So please, keep a lid on your disappointment and let the man rest this year. I promise I’ll make sure we go double hard next time we have the light. We’ve been figuring out a lot more ways of testing it and we have books upon books of notes; I promise you, we’re not slacking on this. No matter how much time we spend making out.” 

 

Davenport grimaced and then laughed. “I know. I trust you, Lup. I just worry.”

 

Lup sighed. “Yeah, I know you do. You and Barry are both really good at that.” 

 

Davenport shrugged as he gave Lup a crooked smile underneath his curled mustache. 

“That’s just our method of motivation, I guess. I don’t know how the rest of you find the energy to keep pushing forward any other way.” 

 

Lup cocked her head as she looked at Davenport with concern.

“That… that is -- well, first of all, sad. And also untrue. We  _ all  _ worry, but we - at least I hope that we all have motivation outside of worrying and feeling defeated. There’s a lot of good and bad wrapped up in this and… well, I’m motivated by all of you, by watching all of you, by how I feel about all of you. I’m motivated thinking about there even being the slightest chance of us reaching the best possible future at the end of all of this. I’m motivated by thinking -- by  _ knowing  _ that there will be an end to this. We’ll get there. We will, Dav.” 

 

Davenport smiled warmly. But his smile faded after only a short moment and then he pinched the bridge of his nose and dropped his head. 

 

“I know. I know all of that. I do. I know. It’s just hard to believe that there’s anything to look forward to sometimes.” 

 

Lup’s face went flat, then wrinkled up in concern. She straightened her shoulders and unlaced her fingers before reaching over the table to pat Davenport’s shoulder. 

 

“You seem like you’re -- I don’t want to tell you what’s going on with you, but you seem like maybe you’re spiraling a bit.” Lup sat back, drawing her hand away from Davenport and lacing her fingers on the table in front of her again. Davenport looked up at her expectantly, hearing that there was an idea in the tone of her voice. 

 

“Maybe we need another year to get our heads straight, recharge our mental health a bit? I mean, it’s only been over thirty years since the last time we gave ourselves a full year of that.” 

 

Davenport nodded. “Y’know… as much as I hate letting any time slip by, especially as we get further into this… you’re right. Next time we end up on a planet that’s a good fit for getting some down time, let’s do that.” Davenport tried to smile, but Lup saw through his weak attempt. 

 

“What is it?” 

 

“Just… that sounds great, it really does, but… how long will it be until we even find a place where that’s possible? What if we never find another one-”

 

Lup got up from her chair, walked around the table, knelt down by Davenport’s chair and put her arms around him in a gentle hug. 

 

“We’ll find something. Soon. I can feel it.” 

  
  


*** 

  
  


Lup and Barry heard a knock at the door just as they had barely started waking up. Lup rubbed the sleep from her eyes and set a hand on Barry’s shoulder when he moved to get out of bed. She shook her head at him. 

 

“Mmf, lemme get it.” 

 

Barry sat up in protest, wanting to let Lup keep sleeping while he got the door. 

 

“You know you got injured, too.” 

 

She shrugged, her eyes barely open, her smile soft and sleepy.

“Yeh, but I just got a little poisoned. I’m coolsies now.” 

 

Barry laughed. That was her -- his incredibly strong, funny, and caring partner in… in everything. He watched her get up and walk to the door and the look on his face was the relaxed, lovestruck, goofy smiling expression that she loved. She became more and more of a fuzzy outline as she moved across the room away from him, but he couldn’t help but watch her anyways, melting at the sight of her simply existing, even though only seconds before she had been next to him, tangled up in the sheets together. A day didn’t go by where he wasn’t bowled over by the fact that he not only was lucky enough to know her and be around her, but that he was someone special to her, someone that got to be so intimately close to her, someone that she wanted to be close to. He wondered how he had ever been able to live without her; his life before knowing Lup was so far in the past that it felt like it wasn’t real. Back on their home planet, he would have amounted to nothing but a corpse. But instead, he had something so spectacularly unreal sounding, this fairytale concept of true love. He had that, and by his existence, Lup had that too. And there hadn’t been a single day for the past ten years where that thought didn’t thoroughly blow his mind. 

 

Lup opened the door to Taako, expertly balancing three trays, one on top of his forearm, held close to his body, while he held the others in each hand. He waltzed into the room as soon as Lup had the door open for him. 

 

“It’s a good thing that I’m magic, otherwise I don’t know how the hell I woulda knocked on the door so that you clowns could let me in.”  

 

Taako glided across the room and set one of the trays on the small table by the bed, then twirled around to hand another one to Lup after she had closed the door and followed after him. 

 

“Aww, Ko… thank you.” 

 

Taako waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, it’s no big. Figured you two were gonna be late to breakfast again if I didn’t just bring it to you.” 

 

Lup smiled wide, her tone teasing as she responded to her brother. “Mmhmm, but why do you have three trays, Ko?” 

 

“Tch, what? Is it not cool if I hang? You about to get into some early morning hanky panky? Well, you can wait until after breakfast and also once I’m way, way far away from this room.” 

 

Lup laughed antagonistically as she got onto the bed and sat cross-legged on the corner while settling the tray on her lap. Taako motioned to Barry to grab his own tray off of the nightstand while he sat at the opposite corner from Lup so that the three of them were facing each other in a circle. They talked and joked over breakfast in bed, enjoying Taako’s cooking and each other’s company. At one point, there was a lull in the conversation and Taako looked down at his plate, anxiously stabbing at a couple of stray berries . 

 

“I’m- I’m glad you’re both still here.” 

 

Barry smiled warmly, feeling touched. Lup leaned over to put an arm around Taako’s shoulders. As he leaned back towards her, she scooted her arm further over his shoulders until she was able to stealthily, just barely, reach his plate with her fingertips. She grabbed the last piece of his  toast  and quickly pulled her arm away and shoved it into her mouth. Taako moved the tray from his lap and slammed it on the bed in front of him so that he could tackle his sister as she cackled maniacally, muffled by a mouthful of stolen food. The bed jostled with their play-fighting and Barry cringed as the worst-off of his two elbows hit the headboard behind him. He laughed despite the momentary pain and wondered again how he could possibly be so lucky. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
